To the moon

from this human

Found this on twitter

You probably don’t know this, but I see you.

Dear you—

no, that’s not right.

Dear moon,

It’s me. Just me. I know how that sounds when you have a sky full of people staring, but I mean it in the smallest way possible. I could never match you—I’m mortal, and you… you don’t even belong to yourself. Still, can we go on just one date? Not a real one. Just a moment where you stay, and I don’t look away.

The sun doesn’t have to know. It burns too loudly anyway. Are you guys really together?

Dear moon,

How do you manage to look different every time I find you? I swear you change just to make me doubt my own memory. Were you ever human, or is that just something we tell ourselves so the distance feels less cruel? I try to imagine your face before the light, but it keeps slipping. Maybe that’s the point.

Dear moon,

They love you too. I see them—heads tilted back, pretending they’re the only ones you shine for. I used to think that made what I feel smaller. Now I think it just makes me honest. I don’t want all of you. I wouldn’t survive it. Just enough light to prove I was here when you were.

I saw the pictures from the last expedition. They said you were dust and shadow and color. They said you were empty.

They’re wrong. You’ve never felt empty to me.

Dear moon,

It’s 11:12 and I still haven’t looked outside. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m afraid you won’t be there, or worse—you will be, and nothing will happen. You’ll just hang there like always, and I’ll still be here, writing like this changes anything.

Dear moon,

I would come to you if I could. But the laws of physics keep me honest—the gravity, the air in my lungs, the weight of being something that cannot leave. I am held together by things you don’t need. Maybe that’s why you’re so quiet. Nothing is pulling at you the way it pulls at me.

Still, I think about it. Crossing that distance. Saying nothing. Just standing in your silence and letting it undo me.

Dear moon,

If two distant stars can burn in the same sky without touching, does that count as being together? Or is that just another way of naming the space between them?

Dear moon,

I should go. The others will notice if I stay here too long, if I keep writing like this. They’ll say it’s nothing. They’ll say you’re just light, just rock, just reflection.

Maybe they’re right.

But if you’re there tonight—

stay a little longer.

I’ll look this time.

I promise.

From human.