Stories from The Moon / Cuentos de la Luna

 I didn’t know that I was allowed to miss him.

That I was allowed to touch that hollowed-out crater between my lungs with my fingers. That missing him after years and years, had a name: Love. What they don’t tell you either is that love isn’t water-soluble. That the stain is permanent. I’ve washed my body with flashbacks of your voice and the freckles on your hands. Your name still reads clearly in blue letters across my right ribs.

Our story sprouts from my collarbone like ivy.

Intertwining from the first time I saw you to when I hugged you in our living room and then coming back behind my right ear, to the last time you looked at me with a smile, and then hanging over my forehead, to that one time we prophesied our future family out loud.

I am a garden full of what-if’s that never blossomed.

I didn’t know that I could grow. The love you felt for me after you left. Walking, I spread fistfuls of it like seeds on the pavement so I don’t feel alone. Now I see little blue flowers looking up at me.