Marlene stands with her back to the bar because her miniskirt won’t zip. She can feel the place just below her waist where the metal teeth split into a y, the clasp digging. Dead, and still trying to suck it in. Dead, and still caring what size she is. Well, maybe the real question is: Why is she any size at all now? She takes a sip from the amber-colored liquid in her glass–Paper Plane–maybe the last thing she drank before she…? Maybe the first? Briefly panics that she can’t remember and wonders if she’s already losing herself, a losing that happens slow and then all at once. But then, it comes to her.

Amaretto sour.

Takes another sip and frowns, the taste of rye shifting to the taste of almond. Strange place, the afterlife.

 Makes her uneasy. Makes her distrustful.

The dance floor looks like it’s bathed in navy velvet from the moonlight, white folds and fuzzed shadow sheen. Bodies sway. A disco ball descends and then it’s all Donna Summers and Madonna, and she wonders if they pick the music based on which generation is in the majority. It does not make her want to dance, so she drinks instead.

There’s another woman at the bar, much older, with gray ringlets. Her dress, Marlene notices, is zipped up to mid back.

“I hear it doesn’t count when you’re dead,” this mystery woman says.

“What doesn’t?”

She raises her eyebrows, nods at someone young, probably one of the 27s in his wide-legged pants, lurking at the edge of the dance floor. He doesn’t know how to move to the music and instead of endearing, it just makes Marlene feel old. Sad.

“Not for me,” Marlene says, and the woman shimmies off.

She looks down at her glass, thick and beveled with rounded lumps. At her hand wrapped around it. There’s a ring there and she remembers when Dave gave it to her, on the pier in Santa Monica. Hears the waves crash and a seagull and there’s something close to a keening in her chest, something she can’t verbalize. She looks for the exit.

“Who makes a nightclub without exits?” she says to herself.

The claustrophobia sets into her bones, the back of her molars. She notices the rising temperature escaping in steam off the not-yet-cold bodies, pressed together.

Thinks that even now, especially now, her ideal night out would be rotting on the couch, Dave’s feet set on her lap, or his head pressed against her arm. She presses it then against the bar but it’s too hard, too cold, too solid. Remembers, briefly, a fairytale about shoes danced to pieces. The music switches to something older, something Cohen. It’s brief, his croon, because then an alarm sounds, rain prickling across her skin.

The sprinklers, she thinks.

Health and safety, she thinks.

Water streams over her eyelids, blurring vision, and she wonders,

Where can we even go from here?

She stands by the bleachers in an auditorium that had been demolished years ago—a vision in a pale blue taffeta dress she’d worn to our high school prom. I stare at her, afraid to blink.

“Am I dead?” I ask.

She laughs, and the sound washes over me. Her cheeks flush as she smiles. “No, you aren’t dead. Just—elsewhere. For a moment.”

Pink balloons scatter across the old wood floor as she steps toward me, the edges of her dress whispering against her bare calves. Freckles dance like stars across her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose. I love her freckles.

“Are you gonna stare at me all night or are you gonna ask me to dance?” she asks.

I hold out my hand and realize I’m seventeen again, wearing the same ill-fitting suit I had mowed thirty-seven lawns to buy. Her hand slides into mine, and I feel my pulse pound everywhere our skin touches.

Heart in my throat, I lead her to the center of a makeshift dance floor blanketed in low draping lights. She raises my arm above her head so she can spin underneath it and winks at me over her shoulder. A smile breaks across my face, one that turns into a laugh when she tries to spin me under her arm.

She always knew how to do that. How to crack me open when I hardened, to bring warmth to my bones when I froze.

My hands shake as I pull her close, as she leans into me. “I Only Have Eyes for You” plays through the hazy speakers. The song she sang in the car, in the shower, in her studio as she painted. She wraps her arms around my shoulders, and she smells like summer flowers and sunshine, like soft rainfall on a Saturday morning, like cold nights curled under warm blankets, like love and laughter and all the dreams of the life we would have together. The life we built.

Tears fall down my face. She kisses them away.

I clutch her dress, blue taffeta wrinkling under desperate fingers, fearing she would disappear into old music and dusty memories.

“Save another dance for me?”

Smiling, she says, “Always.”

But we both knew I couldn’t stay.

I hold her close until the song fades to nothing.

***

I bring her old CD player to the funeral. I play our song.

My smile, sagging behind wrinkles of age and time and wear, wets with tears. But I can still feel the warmth of her palm on my chest, on my heart, as we danced among twinkling lights and pink balloons.

I don’t know where she went when she walked through the auditorium doors. But I knew that I would find her again. Someday.

And I knew that—wherever she was—she was saving me a dance.

After Wenyi Zhu’s “Magnolia Moon”

It was I, Daughter of the Stars,

who plucked the milk moon from the earl gray sky,

brewed a new cup with her magnolia petals,

stirred to life with my spines.

Her steam is sweet to breathe,

Sakura spirits caressing the blue craters of my eyes,

blushing my pale sick skin.

Sweeter to sip,

as she weeps bright tears upon my lips,

soft spins silk upon my tongue.

She makes me smile,

wraps me in the warmth of her halo,

fills my belly with the promise of life.

You’ll never know coldness,

or darkness,

or starvation

again.

My child,

you’ll never know.

I smile,

and I smile,

And the moon bleeds black

and smiles back

as the world fades to purple dust.

Eli has officially been declared a missing person. I trudged through the snow, my boots leaving deep impressions, while I watched my breath escape in shivers. We had one flashlight and six people’s worth of determination to find Eli.

Max was ahead of me, shouting into the void: “Eli! Come on Eli! I know you can hear me, dammit!”

I jogged to catch up, my breath shallow in the cold.

“Max, we have been searching for hours.” I said, through choked back tears.

“He’s fine, Kit. We are going to find the idiot. Okay?”

“Okay,” I sniffed back.

I could feel something was wrong. It felt like the tether tying us together had snapped and Eli suddenly went loose.

We would always go for walks along the river together. Giggling, cracking jokes, howling up at the sky like the goons we were.

I took a turn through the woods and headed down the hill towards the riverbank. I kept walking, mindlessly, not really sure what I was even looking for. A body?

I was looking for a body.

The police found Eli’s car at the trailhead. His phone, keys, and wallet sitting in the front seat.

I continued walking along the rushing water of the partially frozen river, rubbing my hands together from the biting cold. I had been out here for hours, looking, longing, hoping.

As I continued down the riverbank, I stumbled into a clearing. There was a perfect opening lit by the moon; a tree poised so it hung gently over the water.

And there he was.

I dropped to my knees and screamed up at the sky. The kind of scream that stained memories, burned lungs, and caused aches in your bones.

Max and the others came running from behind and took in the scene. Max dropped down and wrapped his arms around me. We huddled there together in the snow—the moon the only reminder the Earth was still standing.

The corners of Dolly’s eyes are marked red so that the cameras can find them; secretly, it’s so I can always see where she is looking. From the wing, I can tell that she is making eye-contact with every single person in the front row left to right. Each word, she sings especially for each of them, the clear notes of her voice dancing in the air like flakes of early-December snow. Where I stand, though, it isn’t snow so much as ash from a nearby fire. From behind the cyclotron, the spotlight glows a rusty red—as red as the tilled dirt in their tiny town, red as her heart-shaped lips, red as the Republican party. It hangs above me, her, and the entire auditorium like the strawberry moon— but only I can see the red. The audience only sees white, and she only sees the audience. The strawberry moon means that fruit is ripe and ready for picking—shouldn’t all those yokels be at home, harvesting?

The solstice heat was sticky and oppressive, although it was nearly midnight. We laid in the untouched plot of land behind her house. Her father kept trying to grab it, but the zoning office found new ways to thwart him. He is the mayor, for Christ’s sake, she would rant to me. Secretly, I was grateful—I didn’t want to see all the wildflowers mowed down to make room for cow pasture. The way her blonde hair was splayed out on the grass only confirmed my opinion. It looked like the ring around Saturn, a halo to her big round face. She stared at the stars, and I stared at her.

“One day, we’re going to get out of here.” She affirmed, then rolled over and kissed my cheek. I nodded and looked up to the big strawberry moon. “We’ll move to the big city—Nashville, or St. Louis—rent a tiny apartment, and we’ll meet men that aren’t farmers, and—”

She glances back over her shoulder as she turns for water and casts a wide waning-crescent smile. The glare of the spotlight casts her lace dress and the teeth I know to be brilliant white a faded shade of cadmium. The light glances off of her celestial body, and I understand now. She only reflects. Never produces.

When she turns to face the audience again, I walk out the stage door to the parking lot. I look up at the sky, drinking in the stars and satellites and bits of space junk; I drink up Venus and Mars, but I spit them out again, because they aren’t mine to hold. I try to hang on to the harvest moon, but it vanishes from my hands in a red puff of smoke. I brush off my dusty hands and go back inside. Dolly will need her Diet Coke soon.

The child’s joy was contagious. He had no idea this would be one of the most symbolic moments of his life. He emanated sunlight, smiling.

Moments of happiness and recurring lucidity. Life previously so turbulent became a blue ocean of calm. We fought for the first time, the hurt flowed like rain, and the world collapsed after the relapse. I asked myself several times, “Does no one like me?”

Months that used to pass quickly now pass slowly, dragged by force through time.

At the end of the year, the bright star passed by so quickly that almost no one saw it, but that hopeful child did. He requested to have one more chance to change an uncertain future.

Just like the stars that shone that night, the notification appeared. In the middle of the pitch-black, hope rose again with one simple question, can we still be friends?

Maybe I was too hasty. Maybe I should have thought more. If I leave, will you remember me? It’s sad to know I no longer have you with me, smiling. It’s sad to delete the memories of good and magical moments. It’s sad to see you moved on, and I’m still standing at the same bus stop. Now, I’m the one asking the question, can we still be friends?

Top Notes:

Crisp, elusive, clean.

Like the dried orange peel that flits from fingertips into the shallow of the beach water with the moon draping beyond, and the sand particles drifting past lips when the wind kneads hair into twisted knots while the brine never dries.

Pores opening to inhale scent. Mouth opening along with little holes in my skin, and I can almost hear the crunchy, grainy, salty sand rolling in my mouth. I am the voyeur, standing alone in the middle of an open beach.

My unintentional gift— the orange peel— where did it go? It should have sunk underneath the salty waves and laid motionlessly on the brown sugary sand. It should still be there, stagnant, stationary, waiting to be picked up and returned to my hand. And yet, I don’t see a glimpse of murky orange underneath sand-filled water. The moon nods winks at the beach, it pulled my offering away, but I hadn’t had the chance to see it leave.

There exists no orange by the shore.

Middle Notes:

The top notes are long gone and the remaining concoction blooms into a deep creaminess. The velvety middle notes melt into my skin, but my mind yearns for the clean scent of an orange peel flying away. I can’t delight in the taste of time gliding out of reach.

A cycle of fingertips presses down on the oblong perfume nozzle. Spritzes of chemicals grace the air. I exhale. Sniff deeply to replace the remaining air in my lungs with a glimpse of the dried orange peel that has long since flown away into the ocean by the moon’s accord. There’s a nervous haste to my actions. A senseless, irrational desperation for something I know is transient, a bit too ephemeral, something better left in the past.

Base Notes:

The remains after the disintegration of the baked orange and soft cream. The brunt of the burnt metallic base note lingers and settles into my skin. It pockmarks the open gaping holes, an excess of chemicals sunken in because of my earlier desperate spritzes.  

I can smell it. I feel it sinking and carving a territory into my skin, and I thrust my inner elbow underneath my friend’s nose. Trust me, it’s there. But when they try to breathe the chemicals into their lungs, their nose denies its existence. I hunch my back and dive into the juncture of my elbow and inhale. It’s not there in my nose, but I feel it burrowing under my flesh. The pain triggers memory as a reliving and relieving of the process of the death of The Moon by Planetary Pull.

“Are you breathing?”

The girl felt nausea in her nose all at once. Saltwater rose from her stomach, through her throat, and out of her mouth as she spat out bits of the sea trapped in her lungs. The woman standing above her frowned, but the girl didn’t answer her query. What kind of question was that, anyway? Could she have answered if she was not breathing? No.

Shuimu looked down. She was dressed, which was the most important thing. A black dress stuck uncomfortably to her skin, no shoes. The pulse of the waves pushed the fabric of the pants closer to her body, and it irritated her. She moved to her knees, pushing the woman’s hand away.

“What land is this?” Shuimu barked.

“You don’t know?” the woman answered. A smirk played across her face and a silver robe covered most of her frame.

Shuimu looked past the woman from her new resting spot. A blank darkness stared tauntingly back at her. The only light came from the woman, as if she had stolen the moon’s brightness and trapped it inside her. The waves continued to lap on the shore, but no sound came from them. Shuimu laughed out loud. She placed both hands on her chest, took a deep breath, and started chanting.

The Shurangama Mantra came out deep and strong from her lips. The pace was quicker than usual, if only to make the spell work faster.

“What are you doing?” the woman shrieked. “You can’t do magic at night, it’s forbidden here!” Shuimu opened one eye to watch the woman waving her arms. Shuimu smiled at the hysteria and continued her mantra.

“NAMO SARVA TATHĀGATA SUGATĀYA ARHATE SAMYAK-SAMBUDDHĀYA,” she called. Give praise to all the Exalted One, the Well Attained One, the Perfected Disciple, the Perfectly Self-Awakened One! Let us call the power of the Sun!

As she reached the end of the verse, she felt a shift in the air as the woman lunged at her.

Shuimu reached up to wrap her hand around the woman’s hair, twisting it and her head back. Shuimu pulled the woman’s head towards her own face so they were looking at one another upside down.

“Enough games, hag,” Shuimu hissed. “Take me out of this dream and back to my people.”

The woman feigned shock with a wide gasp on her face. She cried out, “What are you talking about?”

Shuimu brought her left hand down onto the woman’s throat and pressed until she heard the quiet, last gulp of air.

The woman’s body disappeared and the light within her died. Just as Shuimu guessed, the woman was none other than the shapeshifting moon in her human form, come to murder her. Too late, you tyrant, Shuimu thought. The horizon faded back into view. Trees on fire lit up the beach as the war against Shuimu’s people raged on. The uprising was here. There was no more time to waste.

a woman at night is like a man in the morning

except in all the ways she is not

for there are no means for the mounted streetlight to feel as warm

on skin

as the unrobed mid-day sun

nor can the sweet chirp of mothers to their young in the nest atop that big old birch

quite compare to the cricket’s night

interspersed by those phantom voices spun

by the hungry winds

gusty manhandling of autumn’s last branches

the moon for all her virtues

cannot give the time

no more than the sun can refrain himself from his merry traverse

on the trail of east to west

from dawn until dusk

when man’s wondrous telescope finds itself wrapped under a tarp

bearing the dirt of good fun

hoisted onto something so naturally manufactured for liberation

a Jeep, perhaps, or a pickup truck

 sans the sort of thing resembling a cover or door

or perhaps onto a back naked without the indentations of a bra

braced upon loud clunky feet that squelch down the mud path

they have never learned to tip-toe around uncles in living rooms

and meander to kitchens where mothers pour libations for thirsty throats or

to hush the patter of hurried footsteps

and avoid the big old lurker lying in the shadows

or to use inside voices when not inside

and listen for those foreign fingers hungry for tender necks

and to stay away from bad manners and shadows

no matter if the shadows transport  

to a poppy field

their pearly whiteness more spectacular night’s canvas and in it

where a patch of grass has

been worn down by calloused bare feet

in the same way man may fall to his knees

look at stars in skies

as the Romans did when Jupiter struck down light’s mandate from His celestial mantle so

too must woman fall

but to scatter rings of salt in the dark

knees resemble meniscus

at night man will delight in the moon

but know that she is nothing without sun’s light

woman could never think to look up

and arrive at this mournful realization

amongst the manic thrum of

howls erupting from the menagerie’s wolves menacing

the walk from car door to home door

uniformed silhouettes brandishing woven manacles

breeding fathers’ Mendelian gaze on adolescent breasts

dead men

and wandering fingers reeking of menthol and vapor

she hears them all in the menial silence of dawn’s darker precursor

senses heightened by menarche

and tragically

the scent of her own traitorous blood is what does her in before morning

All our guests have arrived, and we’re both at the altar.

I used to wonder what you thought about when you closed your eyes. When you were awake, it was easy enough to tell. You either had your nose down in a book, or you were taking a moment so we could listen to music or read together. You’d come up with these fantastic ideas as we danced to whatever song you chose, and when they blew my mind, you would give me the most breathtaking smile. But when you slept, it was a little harder. You didn’t toss and turn, you never made a peep. I watched you for years. And, though you never seemed quite happy, you always seemed the most at peace.

Everyone’s staring at you. Always at you.

I used to wish you’d never found me. We spent every moment together, since. Every class, every meal, and every conversation. It was great…but I felt guilty. You never spent time with anyone else, even when they asked first. No one ever saw me, standing when someone took the seat beside you, or quietly stepping back when they got too close and unknowingly pushed me aside. They never looked my way, and that was fine. But you never spoke to them, and I always felt like it was my fault.

You look so beautiful, I can barely hear the priest.

Would it have been this way if we’d never met, all those years ago? You knew me better than I knew myself. Maybe that was the problem. I savored every moment with you. But there were days you’d grow silent, and just stare at your phone. Days where you’d smile with everyone else, then cry the moment we got back to your room. There were a lot of those days, and I couldn’t comfort you through any of them. Those days, I wish you’d known me a lot less. Those days, I wished you could forget about me.

After the service, everyone stands as we head down the aisle.

I used to wonder about you. It was seventeen years ago you decided you were tired of playing alone, and you saw me for the first time. You dragged me into your make-believe games, and we’ve been together ever since. You were such a bright person. If we had grown apart, as most friends like us did, I know you wouldn’t have abandoned me. You would’ve sent me off with the most amazing story, more than I ever wanted, even if it could never compare to loving you. How it felt, being loved by you. You were everything, my Sun. I had always hoped you would forget me, and make better friends, like all the other children did. Now I wish I could’ve been enough.

They lower you into the ground. And I go with you.

Both moons were out tonight, their red and blue lights filtering through the branches overhead. The night where both moons were full came only once a year. If Esther were superstitious, she would take it as a sign that both moons were out the night she decided to run away from home.

The silence outside the high rampart of the city made her skin crawl. The cart’s wheels squeaked in protest as the draught horse’s hooves thudded in the dirt, drawing the cart forward. Inside the metal walls, the city was polluted by sirens wailing, car tires screeching, and factories churning away. Something behind those walls haunted Esther, and the fear sat deep in her chest as she recounted the seconds it took to get past the guards.

Crates surrounded her on all sides with her knees drawn up to her chest and a pelt blanket draped over her shoulders for warmth. To forget about the oppressive darkness of the surrounding forest, Esther kept her eyes pointed heavenward on the moons looming overheard. The driver’s rattling lantern was the only light source in the vicinity. The low noise of an owl hooting in the distance made Esther jump in surprise, slamming her elbow into a crate. The motion struck a nerve in her elbow, causing her to wince and hiss in pain.

“You alright back there, lass?” The driver asked, looking back at her.

She rubbed a hand against her elbow. A thick Valendolic accent touched his voice—a rare sound in the post-occupation era.

“I-I’m fine. No need to worry about me.”

“The owl startled you, eh?” he chuckled a bit. “I can’t blame you. Those buggers sound awfully intimidating this time of night. ‘Specially when you can’t see.”

“I’ve, uh, barely been out of the city myself. You don’t hear them a lot inside the walls.”

He nodded in understanding. “Makes sense. I can’t imagine animals wanting to live inside those blasted walls. Humans least of all.”

Somewhere, back within city limits, she knew her brother and father were panicking about where she was. What if they were phoning her now disconnected number, knocking on their neighbors’ doors asking if they’d seen her anywhere, or calling her school to ask if she’d come in for the day? Maybe her father was so desperate he reached out to her mother and ask if she’d decided to stay at her place. None of their efforts would yield answers—by daylight, Esther would be long gone.

Sun was a strong spirit, fierce and bright. Effortlessly, he drew attention to himself in a moment’s notice. It helped that Sun was tall, large, and handsome. Sun hunted, fished, and prepared the skin and meat with ease. The power Sun held brought Mars, Venus, and the rest of the village to him.

No matter where Sun went or what Sun did, the village watched him. He felt eyes on his broad back as he walked the dirt path to his hut. Sun didn’t abhor the attention. It was a pleasure to be depended upon and seen as a figurehead.

What wasn’t a pleasure was to be ignored.

Out of one hundred and sixty villagers, there was only one who never dared to look at Sun. Moon, the sickly sibling of the wonderful Earth. They were a pale imitation of their sister. Their lank hair was plaited into twin braids that flew behind them as they ran across the fields after Earth. Sun would watch the siblings from his hut and observe. Moon would stain their white clothes and whiter skin with the reddish-brown of clay and the green of grass. Sun would see Earth forced to spend the late evening hours washing the linens until they were clean from stains.

It angered Sun to see hardworking Earth break her back for the ungrateful Moon. Earth had no children of her own, yet she toiled over every chore the village had. She joined the men in the fields, the women in the animal pens, and the village in the kitchens. She sewed clothes for the children and repaired any holes they had made. Moon only added to the never-ending list of chores.

Sun had had enough. The fires crackled and the villagers chatted, but Moon still did nothing. He stood from his seat and set his hands on his hips. Moon, he called out, come and help me fetch fresh wood for the fires. Moon startled, staring at him. Earth murmured something and Moon reluctantly stood. Eyes downcast, they weaved their way over to Sun and halted steps away from him.

Come along, Sun ordered. He turned and walked to the edge of the woods. Moon’s awkward footsteps followed him. The woods were dark and still. Perfect for Sun to express his anger towards the useless Moon. He turned to Moon, grabbed their wrists, and yanked the wretch forward to crash to the ground. Sun pinned them and wrapped a hand around Moon’s throat. Squeezed as Moon kicked and scratched weakly. No sounds came from their throat as Sun crushed it. He strangled with a sick glee as Moon’s pale face turned red, then purple, then returned to a pale shade once more. Finally, Moon’s body was still. Lifeless. Sun released his grip and stood. Dusted himself clean.

It was done.