The Moon Told Me

I accidentally swallowed the moon tonight.

It burnt my tongue, scorched my throat,

caressed the caves of me with the white-hot,

the fierce bloom, the licking flames and ache.

Memory is a terrible sin, almost

carnal in nature.

Seductive, but vicious

when it is able to possess.

Physical in it’s urgent needs.

I swallowed the moon and it told me

not to cry, it told me that a hundred times

and I always listened. It is a terrible power

to trace my scars and know that I left them

on my scaled skin myself, I myself was always

the one to wield the knives. The moon told me

not to cry and I never did; I was too strong to

let myself get hurt, I was protected a hundred

times over, and I paid for it dearly: my skin is

a fragile beating of scars, I wielded the knives

and lashed out in self-preservation, wounded

the others, so many now, and left myself here;

hollow;

navigating the echoes of my cruelty

for so many shadowy months after;

the traces I left on my own life, as well as the

others, their kindly faces, those gentle lovers.

The moon told me to forget.

Today, I could not listen. It has

been too long, and I ache blind.

I swallowed the moon whole, told 

myself to be a better person, not

let twisted ideas of beauty guide

me to thoughtlessness, impatience,

the unforgivable cruelty of protecting

my own wretched self with the books,

the stars, the dried leaves and stories,

round pebbles, swaying sunsets, new

friends, old poems, golden sunbeams,

or this magnificent, malicious moon

shining silver in the darkness, an exquisite

dinner plate accidentally left in the sky, a glow

left on too long, a piece of beauty that blooms

so fierce it is hard for me to remember

the reasons or this thudding

ache in the centre

of forgetful

chest