I have a confession: I am in love.

No, not the type of in-love found between two people in a relationship.

I am in love, the way you look up one night and off-guardedly fall in love with the moon. I had looked up when my world was chaotic, the world turning, light changing, and I saw him. And he was the moon, in all its fullness, and I fell for his light.

His light was gentle. The borrowed kind borne from fire, tempered into silvery brilliance that makes you forget the shadows in the night. Where wolves preyed upon prey and on each other.

I was a wolf. I took note of every moonrise. I watched him wane, wax, disappear, pull tides. I watched all his colors. The faintest red of his lips. The hints of blue in his veins. The glaring light of his soul. I howled for him deep in the shadows, watched him amidst the stars that surrounded him. I took in all the smidges of gray, uneven surfaces that couldn’t reflect the light very well. And I embraced it. It was what made him him. And that was alright.

But he was for the heavens, amidst the stars. Belonging in the sky. And I was of the earth. No matter how I wished him down to me, or I up to him, we were much too different. Much too unique. I am thankful for the night, for the chance to revel in his light. But only until basking am I allowed. As he crosses horizons, I only watch him go by. And that was alright.

I watched. My love a pack of gum I keep deep in the recesses of my bag. Too afraid to reveal it, because I know how the others will feast upon it if I ever brought it to light. I watched until I noticed the evening star I wished upon shine as bright as the moon. I watched them sail across horizons. And I broke for wishes that would never come true, but I loved him just the same.

A friend asked me once if I still feel for him. I told her no. I used to wish to hold the moon in the palm of my hands. Now I have seen him shine with the stars and I realize that was where he belongs. Journeying through the heavens. Not with me. Not travelling through land. So, now I remain on the earth and love his shadows, his colors, his phases. In the quiet of the shadows. Secretly. Accepting the distance, bound by reality and gravity.

I don’t think I lied when I told my friend, no. I still feel for him. But only in the way one falls for the moon. Sporadically. But intensely. The way I glory in the beauty of the moon every time I remember to look up. And he was my moon.