Biting The Moon

She had ever been lovely and chill, detached and radiant and unattainable, save for the indolent wink and idle kiss she might grace to a happy few, kneeling upon the polished ebon marble floors of the hours of darkness in a dress of crushed velvet spun of the hoary whispers of black spider silk to enfold those whose heart she had claimed in a detached embrace of idle mystery. For eighteen whisper-spun cycles, I had been her sole hand-maiden, dutiful in all sense of the word as I blended so seamlessly into the dark solidarity of her will. Eighteen years of seizing her hand of porcelain and leaping from the windowsill where dusk had wept his sorrows, leaving behind a string of tears spun of dew, hardening to pearls as they were caught in the malcontented sigh of winter, when that lady laid her pale cheek against my own and whispered in tones scented of tangerines, “Come away.”

Drowning. I had been drowning for years in the icy wash of her loveliness that was as treacherous as a double-edge sword, slicing forward, but also backlashing the hand that palmed it for far too long. Lost. I was lost in a mind not my own, observing her wanting to claim me as her prized hunting, hawk, and yet afraid. For as much as she loved him, she knew what I would become if caged. A lost soul that disperses and then departs, triumph lost evermore, like a broken-winged hawk, proud banner-like wings trailing in defeat, yearning for the sky and yet afraid. And I wept, oh, yes, I wept as became lost in the impulsive, fiery intensity of the lurking she-wolf’s temper as she paced the corridors within my soul. To see her cross a room in passing was as if he had been granted a vision of angels, awe inspiring, yet cold as the stars, eyes sorrow-filled at what she could not change. I watched her so closely, so avidly, that whenever the merest breath of wind caught in the voluminous folds of her gown spun of darkened clouds, I found myself tracking, all in a second, the pattern of the fabric's movement from her shoulder to the floor. And the moon in turn watched, silently, the gentle shadows of doubt and anger and anxiety as they passed over the elegant features of my face.

Normally, I rushed to her embrace as soon as I felt the inquisitive tap of her finger upon my shoulder. But not this night. “Damn it, leave me alone,” I snapped, throwing down my pencil upon the virgin surface of my notebook paper, leaping from the chair in a foul temper and drawing the blinds on the curtains so tightly that the slender strings hunched their shoulders and the slanted rods bristled at awkward angles. I couldn’t afford to give in to her, either of them-not the moon, or the she-wolf that resided within. The term paper I was attempting to work on was due in a matter of days, and, as usual, I had put it off until the last possible moment. I hunched my shoulders in a manner not unlike a disgruntled bird, and pointed my remote control with an exasperated air at my stereo, taking momentary comfort in the self-aggrandizing feline-like purr and click of one of my many CDs settling into place on the internal CD rack. I idly press the minute plus sign on the volume control, as if I can force unwanted thoughts and emotions from my head by sheer volume. “I found some peace today, I grit my teeth and swallow all of my pain, and selfish pride I used to hide behind…,” declared the lead vocalist of Future Leaders of the World.

It was then that the subtle sting of my flesh began. The sensation is difficult to describe to one who is not familiar with the cycles of the moon-suffice to say that perhaps “pain” is not the correct word, far too loose and strong upon the unaccustomed tongue-like fine aged wine is bitter to a youth’s taste buds. Perhaps the word I’m searching for is…mild a term though it is, unpleasant. Much like the sensation one achieves when their bulk has troubled an ant hill, and the tiny creatures swarm along the length of your skin in vengeance. My flesh along my airs pinpricks, as though chilled, though the night is humid. The next in this laundry list of eventide pleasantries is a subtle quiver of the limbs- not noticeable to the unkeen eye as it rovers over one’s frame in casual curiosity, but there. My teeth rattle with the ominous sound of bone on bone, and I snap my jaw shut, applying subtle pressure on my tongue to cease the senseless idle chatter of my teeth as they gossip amongst each other. “Let me out, let me out, I’m singing, let me out, let me out…” continues the song, the rifts I once admired suddenly too loud for the confines of my ears.

I attempt in vain to return my attentions to the paper, though the words scamper like bored kittens from page and mind alike. What meager sentences do recline on the page are so hopelessly tangled in a complex knot that leads the reader nowhere cause me to snarl, and the pencil shatters within my grip, the splinters scattering like yellowed and aged tears of angels across the pages. “Let me out, LET ME OUT, I’m singing…” I rise from the chair, rocking back from it with such a sudden violence of movement that it rears upon its back legs, and upsets onto the floor with a ponderous, muffled thump, what little chance for theatrics absent upon this opening night due to thick carpets that grace the length of my room. I spare the chair an idle glance, before crossing to the window, leaning my head against the chill pane, breath pouring fast and hot from my throat, burning with barely repressed desire, fogging the window with grim purpose, obscuring my view, blending the lines between here and gone.

My gaze flickers like an old, picked-over fish at the pet shop settling with a resigned air, the multi-colored gravel with eyes devoid of hope to the calendar. The large, ebon circle graces the otherwise white virgin surface…it’s the last night of the full moon. My last night of bittersweet freedom for another thirty days. Thirty more days of an endless, colorless blur that is my life. And so I turn to her. I run to her cold, silver embrace, bury my face in the chest of the one who has never judged me, nor wavered from my side.

Silver fingers run through my hair wordlessly as the moon then claims my sullen form. And despite the pain…the fear…the confusion…all temporary, mind…I find peace. And I serenade the stars with my silver refrain…a shadowed she-wolf---a shadow across the moon---a half-whispered promise, only dreamt, never heard…a captured beast, within a human skin…all of this and more. A fleeting whisper of freedom. Here, and gone. Savor it. Take the hand of the night…and take your dreams up like luggage.

Tonight is the last night you may be truly free. And so, with such thoughts within my mind, I leap from the window, and am gone. Only my shadow…and my howls remain. They call. Do you come?