Backseat Muse

the illuminated windows of the passing neighborhood remind me of cemetery, rows and rows of orderly glowing rectangles, tombstones, each containing a story within its confines. meanwhile, the half-moon casts its forlorn gaze down onto the earth as if in search of its other half.

she asked me once, if i ever thought i would marry. we'd reached that point in our friendship where the questions ventured into vulnerable territory, where a single misstep could leave your raw flesh exposed. i told her it would be nice, but not a necessity. it was the kind of independent, free-willed answer that i'd been trained to say but still tasted like a lie in my mouth. it's not a necessity. because i know, after nineteen years of having seen it and heard it all around me but having never felt it in my own skin -- love is not water.

take that window, for instance. drive by at nine in the evening, and you'll see the girl who sits there in the evenings, her eyes cast downward and illuminated by the sickly glow of the computer screen. like a ghost. she doesn't read horoscopes -- she doesn't like the idea of her fate predestined by fiery balls of gas that have existed for billions of years, long before she'd ever breathed her first breath.

if i held the beast's mirror in my hand, what would i wish to see? if the moon asked to see her other half, would she find him entangled in the arms of another?

or perhaps she'd see her own reflection and realize that there's no water on the moon.