I shouldn't tell you this (but you're the only friend I have)

Dear Moon,

I haven't had the heart to face you in our twilights, of sorts. I find it easier to talk to you in the dead of the afternoon when you are fast asleep and you don't ask probing questions about why he hasn't come around lately. Because I don't know why he hasn't come around lately. I imagine it has to do with the clouds, the changing weather. Or maybe he caught the scent of whatever it is he has been chasing for all of time. Either way, he doesn't wait outside my house anymore. I go to bed plenty warm, plenty heavy.

I heard you singing last night. I know you hate to be any less than full, but I could hear you from miles away. You must have been sad, which is strange for you. You always seem so haughty, so vindictive to me. But, last night, you seemed horribly sad. And I sat at my window, looking for you, straining to hear you, because whatever you were singing, I think I had been humming earlier.

When you finally came to my window, all traces of haunted had disappeared. I asked you what song you sung, and for a moment, I could have sworn you glared. But, then you laughed, you painfully perfect and utterly flippant gaffe. You said, "Just a song I heard once, somewhere. Who knows. It's awful, isn't it? But, gets stuck, sometimes, between brain cells."

There was no response to that. There usually isn't when you do that. But, what I wanted to say was, "It's stuck between my brain cells too. Except, it's seeped all the way into every bone, vein, and piece of soul it could find. And it is awful. But, I keep singing it because I think maybe it will bring him back."

I don't, of course, need him back. I have understood from the beginning that the nature of us is that it's him and me. Separate. I keep my ghosts and he keeps his light.

Moon, we're not so different. People think of you as careless, fickle, flippant. And I know you want them to because it's the only whisper of legs you have to stand on. But, I see, sometimes, when you're faced the other way, or when you're singing that awful song you heard once, somewhere, small slivers of string, pulling you. You're stuck with him, aren't you? You hate me for the same reason you love me. Because I'm apart of him. But, I hate you the same reason I love you too, because you're apart of him. It's sick, how we won't let go, you to the earth, me to my hunter, even though we can't ever really be apart of each other's world.

I'd try to strike up sisterhood with you, but I know it's for naught. You're from sky; I'm from dirt. If we could mix, neither of us would be alone on cloudy days. Instead, I will just watch you and try to learn your haughtiness. Try to muster up some more strength and warmth and weight.

And to remember to throw away everything that is true and to hold on dearly to our fiction.

This means mostly nothing.

The only man in my life leaves before morning. I like it this way, usually. I see him faithfully every most nights. He comes curling up to me, smelling of night time, secrets, and earth. I lie there, eyes closed tight, mouth barely moving and whisper my whole soul like I'm just talking nonsense to the stars. He's a hunter who has never found what he's looking for and I'm just always feeling h(a)unted.

I can't say he's like a dream and our nights together aren't anything close to clandestine. It doesn't even have the lingering effect of such a thing. There's no haziness as I float through the next day. It's more like waking up with amnesia. Except I'm the tide. So, all it takes is the moon pulling closer to wash in the remnants of old nights. I'm a nocturnal woman who walks the daylight. Most of it could be blamed on the yellow wallpaper I put up in the bathroom that is peeling, but I still wake up reeling laughter alone.
This afternoon, I told stories to the moon while she slept. She wasn't very happy about it, in fact, she barely acknowledged me except to turn over, eyes squinting in the sun, and say, "Where is your hunter?" That always shuts me up because I'm never sure what she means and I think she likes it that way.
I tried to leave moon's house. The afternoon was getting late, which only means the evening was getting early and she was waking up. I always feel her gravity most in the afternoon, but I won't tell her that when she laughs dismissively and tells me to stay. "I didn't mean a thing."
It's a cloudy night, so I know he won't be showing up even though the temperature is a perfect mixture of sadness and love. I won't tell her that, though. She knows and is too busy thinking about how the clouds ruin her light to be worried about me and my hunter(s). I also won't tell her that I think she's looks ravishing in the mystery of the clouds. She won't hear it.

Instead, I just flick my hand like it's nothing as I leave the room, "It's all just a bunch of fiction anyway."