The night had been clear as glass - I should have known it was just as fragile. All key players present: hearts full of hope, stars full of smiles, minds full of dreams, glasses full of courage. Moonbeams, like the ones my heroes wrote of, danced across our skin and gave its soft glow to us to hold in our palms, balance on our fingertips, lick off our lips.
Wanting to meet its warm gaze, I searched through the trees for my light. I often found myself preoccupied with the moon; my searching was as usual. I impressed even myself with how quickly I found it. A slight crane of my neck and a sidelong glance from the corner of my right eye found my moon, our moon, the moon that would always be the same for us, no matter the distance between the places we stood to look at it. Flirting with the leaves of the grim maple in the yard, it peaked and teased its way through the brush to meet my most desperate of stares.
The fog in my eyes cleared in the next instant when I found my moon clinging to a beam of metal. I traced its shape through the inverted L, through the tunnel of steel and into the dark, hard ground. And then I so wanted to be wrong about my newfound moon - its shape so perfect, its light so bright, its pull so clear. But just like me it was only the next best thing.
I found it later, finally, the real thing. Shrouded in clouds, murky with darkness, not nearly as bold as the one I'd mistaken for it. Just like my faith in you and your trust in me, the moon was waning, inch by inch, fading in strength. In a previous heartbeat, in the breath just past, it had been full, glorious, glowing, guiding, beckoning my belief and pulling my inner tides to its center of gravity.
With each revolution that felt like a lifetime, the distance grew greater and my hope weaker. I knew better than to stare into the moon, to inspect it too closely, to believe in it too much, but it's pull had been too much to contend with: I had been helpless to fight it.
And now as it skimped away, you were just distant and I was just helpless.
