the moon, the coast and II

Hello, again. It’s been a while since i was last here, was chained to this miserable reflecting pool. i dreamt of burning chariots and cursed the world for asking me to jump higher and higher. But hey, look. I made it. I’ll take my seat right here, next to my old, rusted shackles. There, nice and comfortable in the cold ocean spray. How have you been, my Moon with the whittled grimace?

I forgot about you, to be honest. Too busy dying elsewhere to die over here. I was too busy living, too. Working with my hands, my arms, my legs and chest and fingers and brain. The sky used to look so… so empty here. Just you, my carved friend, this frigid ocean and i, the unsteady, in the midst of metamorphosis. Now, I am not i, but instead I, the surefooted, black knife in hand and years in his eyes. Now, I can see a twinkling, a glimmering – you swim in a sparkling pond. There’s a tension in the sky, so easily broken with a poke or a prod. I can send ripples into the stars with my hands – the hands I live with. Away from you.

But I’m tired, my Moon with the designed visage. I’m tired and small and the journey here was long. As much as I wish I could be apathetic, I’m not. I bubble and burst and remake myself anew again and again. The tide rocks back and forth and here I sway with it. I lean in as it goes and back as it comes. I rock myself and look down to fill my eyes with the vague shape of translucent waves on pale, dull sand. Listen to them crash and burst and remake themselves anew, again and again. Impermanent. Never-ending. A procession for you and I. Give me a second - let me rock myself here for a moment more.

I know I’m shivering.

It took me a while to come back here. The winding path down the corniche hid from me until I closed my eyes and moved my feet. My legs led me back here, to where the salty air crusts my skin and the frigid sand makes my toes curl. I just needed a quiet moment to take a blind march to find you again.

Right, yes, the black knife. Jet-black and smooth, like those shackles by my feet. Not iridescent black like obsidian glass -- quite the opposite. Light tumbles into it and disappears, absorbed into its structure.

My blade.

I don’t remember if I fashioned it or if it was thrust onto (into) me, but it’s in my hand now. My palm curls around its handle. My arm extends its edge to pierce the night. I am numb as I wield it. My fingers grip emptiness, my hand finds the mass of nothing. It is sharp – hear the briny air whine as I swing it. Let it pierce the ground and dig into the rock, and let the world come tumbling out from the gash, a great beast’s entrails to feast on. Let whatever I pierce be extinguished forevermore. So mote it be, or whatever. It will be done.

My black knife. 

I’m here to kill you, my Moon with the carved smile. 

I need to kill you because you hid the stars from me and now their twinkle lets me feel the fury dormant in me that I need to quiet. I need to kill you because there is no one else here to kill. I need to kill you because I just need to.

Something has to give and I refuse to – not anymore. So you will give, my Moon with the dug-out eyes. You will give so I won’t – so I never will. I’d say I’m sorry but I’m trying to stop saving face for other people’s sake. When you perish you will crash into the Earth, then you will rot and leave behind a skeleton, or whatever a moon has instead of a skeleton, and that too will fade into ash. 

The ocean will cease its rocking. The air will clear of salt. The sand will regain its colour.

The coast will quiet. All will quiet. Then it will be done. 

I will finally quiet.