The Moon's Concubine
I called you yesterday after ten o’clock but they told me you never came home. I went looking for you, but for some reason, you couldn’t be found. I finally found you sitting alone in the park next to the lake on the last full moon. You smoked 20,000 cigarettes even though I told you to keep it down to two. I always told you to listen, but you laughed and told me to go kiss the moon.
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The glittering stars were insignificant to the smiling, golden man. His light extended to touch each of his four concubines, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, and Neptune. Each bowed back with folded white palms clasped in silken robes. Neptune preferred watery blue while Saturn preferred to wear fire. Each concubine bowed to her lord and kept her eyes on the moon.
The girl found him sitting alone on a park bench and touched his hand. When he turned, he didn’t seem surprised to see her. "Fancy meeting you here." He said with a sardonic grin, and the same old cigarette continued to dangle from the corner of his mouth.
"You knew I would come."
"You always come." And he turned away and smoked his cigarettes.
When the moon tired of his concubines and yearned for new flesh, he cut his light and looked for what glowed alone and found his stars. When the concubines found he had tired of them, they shrieked in rage and beat their hands until the heavens rang with their fury. With Saturn in the lead, they came to the moon from four directions and rocked him out of the sky. Each pushed and pulled until the moon finally slipped and fell, and his broken pieces came hurtling toward Earth.
She’d always told him to keep it down to two but now he was up to 20,000 plus four. "Why don’t you ever listen?"
"Why don’t you ever hear?"
The night was silent because it was cold. One of the moon’s broken pieces sat in front of her and she didn’t hesitate to touch it. It had dark hair and eternal eyes but the lips were cold so she kissed it and didn’t let it go until it became warm.
"I always told you not to do that. If I’d wanted you forever, I would’ve married you."
"Let me take care of you."
"I never needed anyone to take care of me."
When the concubines had watched the last bit of moon fall down to the earth, they clapped their hands twice to rid themselves of the dust. "He never should have loved us if he didn’t want us for eternity," Said one, and the others laughed. Their tinkling voices rang to the stars. Then each bowed to the other concubine each and then finally to their broken master, before departing in opposite directions to their four corners in the sky.
She touched a bare finger to the boy’s unconscious face and he trembled in his sleep. The moon would’ve cried to see. If he’d opened his eyes, his tears would have fallen like dry rain.
The night was silent but for her heartbeat. The moon was forever gone. While Neptune sometimes cried, Saturn always smiled and her white hands unclasped as she embroidered her robes with poison.
She looked sorrowfully down at the dying boy and watched him open his eyes. His eyes were wet and he could neither listen nor hear but only see her face.
Above him, the girl sighed at his memories and after knowing him, she touched him once more until the boy’s eyes forever closed.
The night was silent but for Saturn’s laughter and Neptune’s cries from 20,000 light years away.
"Lance, why did you ever try and leave me?"
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You’ll always be mine and I will never let you go. You told me you loved you and I believed in you. You promised to love me forever and you told me during a full moon. You’ll never keep secrets from me because I’ll always forever know. You told me to go kiss the moon and I listened to you. Keep your promises and forever love me too.