tell me the shape of the moon

i liked knowing we were under the same midnight moon, even though we stood on entirely separate corners of the map

i think i knew i loved you, when you became the only person i wanted to tell each little thing to. not just the big things or the headlines. not just the promotions or achievements, or the overly polished updates our mothers brag about to all her friends on facebook. but the nothing things, the half-thoughts, the barely remembered dreams you wake up reaching for. those quiet, mundane moments, beautifully small and unimportant like the shape of the moon on some arbitrary monday night. “go outside,” i’d say, “what shape do you see?” a thumbprint? a bruise? or the space between our lips in that passing second before we first kissed? i liked knowing we were under the same midnight moon, even though we stood on entirely separate corners of a map.

or the color of the freshly bloomed flowers. the ones that made me smile on an afternoon walk. they lived next to that house i told you about, the one with the lemon-yellow porch swing. just like the kind you (jokingly) promised to build me one day.

and sadly, it’s really not hard to picture it. we’d sit there together, my head on your shoulder, your hand on my thigh, our very own sky above us. bathed in melted orange creamsicles and bruised honeyed peaches. reminding us of east coast summer nights, at only fifteen. of fireflies in mason jars, of sticky air with hints of bug spray and cheap perfume in a bright pink plastic bottle. i liked to think we were already dancing barefoot in the same august sunset, even before i knew your name…

but really..we’re not on our porch. we’re not beneath our very own sky. we’re not sitting on the handmade lemon-yellow swing you once promised you’d make me. because i don’t know where you are now. and maybe it just took me too long to notice, that you were already fading when i met you. forever fleeting, as if you were the month of february. and maybe you were always meant to be a mere footnote, like the mediocre last kiss you didn’t know would be the last. like the secret places in your hometown you only visit in the summer. or the smoke in the air from that lucky cigarette. or the lingering taste of my name on your tongue.

but now that i’ve traced each of your freckles, from your arm to your back. felt your sunday morning lips, soft on my neck. watched the pale early light shift slowly across your chest. and can still hear the silence when you first held my hand.

that quiet with you. that once felt as honest as the sun. feels only cold and heavy, like wet clothes clinging to your skin. and now.. i think i hate knowing that we still share the same sky, the same moon of different shapes, and that same august sunset soaked in tangerine peels and soft velvet plums. even though you’re no longer under it with me.

…and yet. i still tend to wonder. when i walk out the door. on an arbitrary monday night. do you step out too, and look up at the sky. and think about what you’d say to me, if i asked you the same of that same midnight moon?