lunar-knowledge

[lunar-knowledge]

i saw you today.

not on purpose, obviously. you've been avoiding me as a deer avoids hunters. even today when i saw your group, you shuffled to the side, away from me.

i don't think i should be upset. i mean, you're the one that cut the whole relationship off. sometimes i dream about you, of us both apologizing and mending everything we tore apart.

dreams are so funny.

i almost stopped in the automatic doorway, almost shocked to see you laughing and joking around. it seemed as if your face fell when you noticed me, even as others laughed and screamed with joy at my presence.

i am not a bad person. i am not a bad person, I am not a bad person!

i don't think i need you to realize that anymore.

i wish you the best with your life. i have made my friends, and you have made yours. when they overlap we graciously ignore each other. i hope you're as okay with it as i am.

[lunar-knowledge]

my father leaves again tomorrow, so we said goodbye tonight. i give him an awkward hug, though to be fair, it's closer to a hug than what we usually do.

i don't cry in front of him. i come very very close, but i don't. my voice quivers as i walk into my bedroom, wishing him safe travels and giving him my love. im not his little girl anymore, i can't let him wipe away my tears. can i?

no. no, i can't. i shouldn't even be crying. he's not going away forever, ill see him again. when he comes back to pack away our house and take the rest of my family with him, when i head up there on the small breaks when i can get off work. it just feels like this is final, somehow.

this is the last day i can blame it on november, so i might as well.

[lunar-knowledge]

we were both looking at the moon. and now we're watching her together. :)

there was this one time in particular im remembering tonight. you wanted to go outside and stargaze, and while i wanted to stay inside, where the bugs couldn't get me, i followed you outside. we waded through tall summer grass, the strands tickling my legs as we climbed onto your trampoline. we laid there, two tiny humans, staring at the sky. i created a playlist on my phone right then and there, and we stayed outside for a short while until your attention span moved us back inside.

i hope we can have another moment like that. i hope petty squabbles won't drive us apart. we were meant to be soulmates, remember? in the platonic sense, sure, but soulmates nonetheless. it is so strange to me how under the same night sky we can find ourselves in such insanely different predicaments.

i am looking at the moon tonight. are you?

[lunar-knowledge]

there was this one time in particular im remembering tonight. you wanted to go outside and stargaze, and while i wanted to stay inside, where the bugs couldn't get me, i followed you outside. we waded through tall summer grass, the strands tickling my legs as we climbed onto your trampoline. we laid there, two tiny humans, staring at the sky. i created a playlist on my phone right then and there, and we stayed outside for a short while until your attention span moved us back inside.

i hope we can have another moment like that. i hope petty squabbles won't drive us apart. we were meant to be soulmates, remember? in the platonic sense, sure, but soulmates nonetheless. it is so strange to me how under the same night sky we can find ourselves in such insanely different predicaments.

i am looking at the moon tonight. are you?

[lunar-knowledge]

i have been feeling strange lately.

it starts as minor disappointments in the day. the brita isn't filled, my pen dies out, the charger got unplugged. but, as they continue to pile up, i get more and more overwhelmed until i am drowning in a sea of disappointment and tragedy.

here's where it starts to get strange.

i have been having vivid dreams in which i am being hunted. like an animal. my friends, sometimes, as well. but oftentimes only me. it's my teachers or my directors or my parents. and i am going to be captured.

eventually i give up and am caught.

i suppose it's what i do in life, too. i try to fight at first. a paper written here, a discussion finished there. but i slowly start to give up. i stop turning in things. go through my day as a zombie. question my every choice. eventually i start to fix those minor inconveniences as a way to seem productive to myself but i just feel as if i am floundering.

even now, as i sit in an uncomfortable dorm chair and type this jumbling of words out, i feel strange. as if i am drifting. i feel the world pass me by, feel the waters of time flow past me.

maybe it's just November.

[lunar-knowledge]

he wins. he wins, and i go to class. my teacher talks, and all the while, i wonder, "does she know how much she's just lost?" he wins, and i miss my second class. i sing karaoke with my friends in the practice rooms, and all the while, i think, "is this what i will remember when the world goes to shit?" he wins, and i eat lunch. i push the food around my plate, and all the while, i commiserate, go over the same five points my friends and i keep repeating. he wins, and i go back to my dorm. i sit in my dorm, scrolling through media, and i have a panic attack, all the while wondering, "how much will i lose? how much will my brother lose, my best friends, my roommate?" he wins, and i go to work. i take people's money, and all the while i wonder, "did you vote against me? did you vote against my rights? do you hate me?" he wins, and i go home. and this, this is the worst of all.

because, all the while i am home (the five minutes i can stand to be around my family this night), i have to sit there and wonder, "did you vote for your daughter?" i know my mother did. but my father? what can i say? can i defend him? i can't even tell who he voted for, he's so closed off.

my mother, on the other hand, is very loud. very open. she ushers me to the office, shows me all the anti-president posts she has been sharing. "i am a safe space for trans kids." it's all i can do not to scoff in her face. i toyed with the idea in middle school, and she cried. i solidified the idea in high school, and she called me insane. i am a transgender person now, and she does not know. but by all means, post about how you would help every other trans child except your own.

he wins, and i go back to the dorm that night. i call my brother. we comfort each other with stupid jokes and genuine smiles.

he wins, and my home feels foreign.

he wins, and i start living out of spite.

he wins.