by Julia Rios
(USA)

I dreamed the moon
came down from the sky;
I dreamed she was dat­ing an old friend of mine,
shar­ing a flat with 6 others,
shoe­string budget,
kiss­ing all the time to keep warm.

Peo­ple always call her lumi­nes­cent, but
the moon­shine wears off
after par­ties at night;
there’s a point when all is darkness,
and chalky dust, and rocks.
The moon has real­ly big pores,
and that min­er­al pow­der isn’t fool­ing anyone
set­tling into the craters like that;
she’s try­ing too hard
like her eye­sore of a mother,
who always over­does the bronzer.

I dreamed the moon
made water rise up everywhere
until the whole world drowned,
and I was glad
because at least this way
my friends knew in the end that
I was right about her.

I dreamed the moon
and I woke up alone:

Emp­ty bed,
Emp­ty sky,
Emp­ty world devoid of tides…

I’m sor­ry.
I didn’t mean all those things
about the makeup,
or your mother,
or your adverse effect on the oceans.
I wish I could shine like that,
all soft and bright
so every­one felt pret­ty around me. 

Julia Rios is a grad­u­ate of Viable Par­adise, and her poet­ry has appeared in Gob­lin Fruit, Every­day Weird­ness, and New Myths. She is the Staff Inter­view­er for Stone Telling: The Mag­a­zine of Bound­ary-cross­ing Poet­ry, and host of the Out­er Alliance Pod­cast (sup­port­ing and cel­e­brat­ing spec­u­la­tive fic­tion with QUILTBAG content). 

Filed under: Jabberwocky 13