ecliptic

The moon didn't melt away. It didn't dissolve like resolution or fade like faith. The curtain was pulled and all that glow became muted, the moon submerged into obdurate shadow. I saw it cut an evil grin in west heaven, then it was a dull stone hung above the dim horizon. It waited there in stark relief as the darkness descended, daylight hinting away from the east. I watched it there as it surrendered to the hills and rooftop obstructions, dawn always somewhere in reserve.

I am faded and I am fallen. Weary and slow and dull, I know I should leave soon. Yet every time some bad hand reaches for my throat I am again that flurry of gleeful destruction and vicious rage, too weak to let some stranger decree me through. The light finds me less and less, the words all sorted into sortie and apologia, the devil's due and the levity in God's grand joke. I am all but gone, but I can not offer gracious surrender. I am mostly ache and tears, but the ache and tears will not remit. The fire is leaving but the embers still stir hot and bright.

It is essential to the integrity of the whole story that every piece does its part. It is crucial that the puzzle has its fits and starts. The mystery nuzzles up to some familiar cycle, leaves fall and the moon holds its breath, the earth casts its shadow from some other blazing day. I stare up at the sky through trees and over fences. I watch the stars and the moon while most folks are still asleep. The world turns, shifting its weight from hip to shoulder. The world turns, making the best with what is left. The day comes, and I melt away like some made-up moon. Always less, never letting go.