When I was younger, I watched the moon out of the car window. I gave him a face and body so he could run along, so he could keep up as we drove at fastball speed. I love the old myths about the moon and the sun and how they were lovers kept apart so the world could live on. The man on the moon must be forever hopeful that each morning, when the sun and the moon switched hemispheres, he can see her, his sun, for a moment.

I thought I saw the moon, or sun, in her eyes, or in mine when I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom. But she left, as the moon and sun traded spots in my Pennsylvania sky, with naked feet and a bad headache. These are the girls who fade like smoke. Their memory is best drowned out night after night. As life starts to move at fastball speed, I think maybe I am becoming the moon. Drowning memories every night only to briefly see hope before she leaves my apartment without looking back (I watch her until I can’t see her from my bedroom window).

When the moon was a man, I didn’t know the earth revolved around the sun and that it took 365 and a quarter day to complete one rotation. I didn’t know the moon stayed in the same spot. I didn’t know time would speed up, like the older folks said, and that each day would hold an eternity and nothing. I didn’t know the sun rising each morning would be the only thing I could count on. Drunk girl kisses aren’t promises.

There is a moment when the sun and the moon are both in the sky together. In this moment they can see each other and it’s beautiful, like it is the only thing worth it all. That moment when she wakes up next to me and her eyes open and close a few times before focusing on me. And she smiles. She smiles at me for that brief moment before she gets up, before she gets dressed and leaves forever. For a moment the sun and the moon see eye to eye. Those moments and short and fleeting but, I guess, that’ll be enough to live on for now.

_Author’s Bio

Alexander Strickler has been writing down words in a purposeful way since his high school graduation.

He has written in many forms including fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry and prose poetry.
What he has sent us for this publication is one of his prose poems. His influences include Chuck Palahniuk, Vince Guerra and Shane McCrae.

Alexander is currently editor-in-chief of The Reflector and has been working with Shippensburg University’s undergraduate journal of the arts since he started college. He is an English secondary education major and will be student teaching this spring semester. _

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