A Curious Moon

By Christina Polge

i gave up playing god on a thursday afternoon
2pm walking home
shirt sticking to my back
humming that song about the willow tree

peeling a scab off my forearm with one hand
wondering how much i could make myself suffer
praying in spurts of pain
that’s what it was for me back then, religion
blood drying on the pads of my fingers
salty on my tongue still when i licked it clean

what does it say about me,
to have spent my life
holding my hands in tightly hidden fists?
i am trying to understand
what it would mean now,
to hold them open

stuck between
what language can and cannot hold
what can and cannot be named
i led myself to a meadow
where i bled into the earth
stems shot out of the ground
petals spread themselves open

i thought of you
& i curled up in the moss
tucked my chin to my chest
‘til the stories in the sky came out

i listened to the songs the moon and stars sang
i loved it all then
the whole world, softly and violently
so much i thought about death
but anything worth dying for
is certainly more worth existing for

so i will live
through the sheer love for it all

i am not ashamed of my love
you could cup it if you want
gently in your hands
but i will not pry your fingers open
if you do not have the space
if you are holding too many other things

i miss you in the morning anyway
i can’t help it
i wish we had known each other
the summer i was 11
eating too much watermelon
chasing bunnies in my yard
climbing a higher branch on the magnolia tree each day
still a little bit feral in an explainable way

but now i will scrub blood off my fingers
and with it goes the memories i hold like a stone
i fall to my knees in the soft grass
and tilt my chin up towards the sun
i turn my head to a thousand possible things
and i reach for them in the twilight
the place where things begin & take shape & end

i see how everything is still alive
i breathe with it
& i hope you are somewhere
breathing too
i hope you go out in the sun
& live a little
i hope you can see the way the clouds dance
& the way they move just like you

i meant to tell you
this was the closest i ever got

Christina Polge (she/her) is most importantly a Scorpio sun, Capricorn moon and Scorpio rising. She is also a poet currently based in North Carolina. When she isn’t writing poetry in her Notes app, you can find her frolicking in meadows, hosting board game nights or making hyperspecific Spotify playlists. Her work has appeared in Pine Song by the North Carolina Poetry Society, the engine idling and Teansients Magazine, among other publications.