The Ghost and The Moon

I dreamt of a ghost beyond my window, 
Standing at the edge of my yard,
Translucent below the marble moon.

She stood erect beneath the formidable night sky.
With an upward tilt of her head, hair grazing her waist,
She stared the bald moon back with her vehement gaze.
When I opened my own eyes, I was under the sky.
Color in my cheeks and blood in my veins,
Dewy-grass feet firmly in the dirt.

And so I walked inside to dream of a blank sky. 
Not unlike the blackboards the morning of Sunday school:
Washed clean, ready and inviting.




For so many weeks, months, I felt haunted. Everywhere I went, every experience, was a reminder of what had happened. That I was not who I used to be and I was not who I wanted to be. That I had made mistakes and simply did not measure up. I was empty.

I don’t know exactly when it happened or how it happened, but I felt life breathed back into me, or maybe I breathed it into myself. Perhaps it was simply that enough time had passed. (And perhaps I had just written enough poems).

It is funny how simple things can represent complete opposites depending on the experiences occupying our headspace. The moon, for example, represented something that I felt saw right through me, something that followed me no matter where I went. It was watching me and I could not escape it. Now I am again able to look at it with a sense of wonder.

It is simply the moon and it is beautiful.

The Moon It Follows Me

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The moon it follows me.

Peeking over clustered roofs,

Through branches and quivering leaves.

I saw it in my window last night, I swear !

It’s bald face staring down at me.

I ran down to the ocean

To beg the sea to take me away,

But there it was,

Its brilliance in light,

Scattered all around me.

I’ve been to the moon before (and unexpectedly stayed awhile).

Moon air filled my lungs,

Silver dust coated my skin.

Its scent soaked into my hair.

Of gunpowder, did you know?

I placed my two hands on his bald face to feel what makes him whole.

I laid my wrists across cratered scars so he may feel the beat of a pulse.

I let my tears fall onto chalk skin so he too could learn the texture of water.

He gave my pulsing blood a tide and presented a magnificent earthrise.

And now I cannot unsee the most beautiful sight my eyes have ever seen.

One day I happened upon his farther side,

The side you cannot see.

It is darker and colder than you could ever imagine a place to be.

My footprints on the moon, now forever far from me.

I left the moon, and still — the moon it follows me.