One night the moon broke like a bad tooth and splintered out in thousands of parts, with many of these pieces being lost, while others fell to earth. My neighbor John is a collector of moments in history, great or small, storing these prize items right next door to me in his home. Just before the moon fell I was showing him a small chunk of my heart, saying, "It was torn out and stepped on by a shadow." He placed this specimen in his handkerchief explaining to me, "As a professional I must tell you the worth of these things can be hard to determine." Then over his left shoulder I saw the moon make a wobbling motion and fall.1
In amazement and with much talk we walked to John's place to properly store my broken heart. John's house looked like a brown horse with a sway back, it seeming about to collapse from storing so much history. On a dirt wall in the basement were shelves of pint and quart canning jars. He took down a quart jar, dropped my heartbreak into a solution with several similar chunks, all the while talking about the moon's fall. 2
"Upstairs in one of those padlocked refrigerators? I've Elvis' foreskin. I'm not lying. And the wrapper from Jesus' last cheeseburger? It's filed away here somewhere." He waved his arm around as if to point out where. On lower shelves were gallon milk jugs that softly reeked of decayed history. Under the glaring light bulb were metal and wooden bins with different sections containing keys, string, love letters, headlines, locks of hair. John became excited, " But a piece of a dead moon? For a professional like myself? What could be better than that?" 3
And pieces of the moon did start to show up in vacant fields, tops of houses, and in the woods. Immediately my neighbor started a great controversy by declaring he'd found the head of the man in the moon. What I saw was skull shaped, with wiry metallic strands on top like hair. He wouldn't let anyone examine it too closely. Other pieces showed up equally as unusual, the moon now discovered as having been more complex than imagined. Some pieces were luminous, others made small sounds in the sunlight, while another type moon rock gave you a rash. One sample was soft and green, John labeling this genus as moon cheese. I threw myself into the hunt during the day, while working at night with my neighbor in the categorizing of pieces. I found out that you can lose yourself in details, but eventually you wake up to the pain. I missed the moon, and I mourned that part of my heart floating in a jar in my neighbors basement.4
The town elders tried to help move us through this loss. They acknowledged, " It is one thing to lose the moon, and another to live without it. Be like the snake that drops its old skin. Begin anew. Be like the trees who wrap a ring around their experiences and cover it all in bark. Carry on."5
But it wasn't easy to forget. Spider monkeys in the jungles crept along on thin limbs, their balls tightening as they looked up and howled at an imagined full moon. Female lemurs racked themselves wet shaking the bushes of Madagascar, while the seas moved in imitation of tides. Likewise I struggled to make sense of it, sitting up in my bed, filled with desire like the monkeys, my blood pulling with the seas. I was in great disorder looking for a light that meant as much as life, and hoping for a thing which no longer existed. This is all because one night the moon broke like a bad tooth and splintered out in thousands of parts, with everything being lost. 6
Author notes
Any feedback is better than no feedback at all.
A contest entry
- Lover Story. ^-^ by My-Name-Is-Nobody.
440 points, ended December 1, 2007, 29 entries
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think? Please comment!
Comments
1 - 13 of 13
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Hi Laura: just saw your remarks. I really liked how this one turned out so am especially happy when someone reads and appreciates it. Like your homepage, Van Gogh and all your trophies. Got to read some of your stuff. Thanks. Dave
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This is utterly fantastic!!!! I understand that this is about the importance/unimportance of things we've lost but I saw so much more between the lines!!!! I detected a hint of Stephen King within and could visualize the search for the pieces of moon, even the chunk of his broken heart floating in the jar. Thw whole thing I read in amazement!!!!
~lAURA 
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Thanks for reading and appreciating this piece. It's great encouragement. I like how it came out, but I'm prejudice.
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i like it a lot. the prose you use is cool while you still tell us what happens and your images are always different and unique
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Okay Renee you're firing me up to overwhelm you with a tidal wave of compliments. Been reading your short novel.
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Thanks for your comments. For me it helps the writing feel complete when it is read and, the things I tried to accomplish, are recognized. Your great.
ps some of my other things might not strike you as well. -
Absolute Fabulous... truly
This is such a brilliant piece. I love the metaphor. I don't really have much else to say, except 'truly unique imagery.' This one really impressed me.
-Renee -
You have written amazing images here,'the moon broke like a bad tooth and splintered' and 'John's house looked like a brown horse with a sway back'. Images that are fresh and new and not cliched at all. In doing this, you have managed to capture the poignancy and wonder of finding lost things or maybe just searching for lost things. Although you don't set this anywhere it feels other worldly or perhaps that should be olde worldly with an atmosphere of innocence that I've not seen in a long time. I'm glad I came upon your work. I think I'll be reading more of you.
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Hi: thanks for reading this, and no, anything you had to say would be appreicated. I ran off your poem Watch How She Plays so I could read it better. It's playful and moves along good, no complaint. But 'Buried' and this other piece I can't find but had commented on before, (was about lonliness, going down, Help Me, sort of type,) are much stronger and successful. There were real emotions in those that you were good at expressing.
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wow any assesments i was gonna make is pretty much worthless compared to those above ... sooo i think ill just say that you did a great job on pulling all those values together in one write being able to make them flow as well as you did. I think we all know youre very bright and we all look forward to your work. thank you for sharing. ~Lf
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well.. no need to be intimidated! i wouldn't actually classify myself as a poet (although the 'vile' word play that i use could be looked at as poetry i suppose)...
for me writing is, and always has been, a direction of choosing what is flying about on the top of my mind or what is bubbling on the bottom, i tend to go with the latter!
and no, i don't think i'm overrating you. 'I', as an individual love your writing... weather it's the best i've read or not. i value your patterns of thought, and feel as though i can relate to them.
also... if you ever feel the need to critique any of my rantings have no worries, i'm not one of those weepy people who take every second of breath seriously. if you don't like something, tell me it's shit! so the whole 'you scratch my back i'll scratch yours' is out the window immediatly. as you stated in your author comments 'Any feedback is better than no feedback at all'... it's true!
and another thing (haha), keep in mind that when you read my writings you should always let go of what it is your trying to attain in the piece, let your mind roam around the words, not in them, and try to assume a rather 'lucid' mindset, as that's what i do when i'm writing them.
and by all means do 'enjoy the ride'!
"a dave is a dave!"
"i never met a dave i didn't like" (i have so many friends named dave (!) i laughed when i saw that was your name as well)
fond regards~
leah -
Hi: You're right, this is about us questioning the value of things we've lost, which is questioning our value as a person. Society steps in to tell you what it was all worth and how to act, which is usually 'suck it up and forget about it'. Then the person in this story breaks through and acknownledges how deep and wide a hole the experience cut into them. I think we bless ourselves when we realize the full destruction we are capable of experiencing. To me that means we are made to be able to fully experience all the wonders of this life, good and bad. (too upbeat for you?)
I am intimidated and bewildered by your praise. Thank you for appreciating the writing, and taking time to think about what it was about. I know etiquette on this site has it that you kiss mine and I'll kiss yours back. But I was puckered up long before you wrote the above. After your note on my bio I'd been checking in and out reading your poetry. A dull laziness got in my way at first. I wondered who you were with the word choice, movement in this quasi stream of conscious flow, and the thoughts that came through in bits and pieces. Like I said, dull and lazy. Your wrestling with the deeper thoughts of where we are, how we got here, where to go is so beautiful, and the way you accomplish this is very original. That is art, real art. I admit I have questioned if I was seeing your correctly, but I believe I am. I love to write, with the words, the ideas, the creating. I feel you are overrating me, but that's fine. I'll go along for the ride. thank you leah.
Dave
Edited on Jun 15, 2:34 because ''. -
1. pieces of the human heart are neither worthless, nor self sufficient. more often than not they are taken as both. an expression of intimacy, reaching out for healing hands. perhaps to persuade self healing from a teetering opinion...or a 'forcing' of oneself to 'become' what is already 'known' that one should become.
2. a scrapbook laced within the bones, to the core of the unknown... pieces of self, pieces of others, canisters containing thoughts glued to emotions. refracting from the core, reflecting to the surface, conveyed through thoughts, determined onto sheets, to begin again throughout the cycles... in another area, another mind, between another thought, and conveyed within 'my' folds of brain.
3.mystery which is aloof. the questions that bounce in all our minds at one point or another. the things that seem to be known by one yet not by another, or perhaps it is, but only in shrouded shadows do they collide. in the back of the mind, in the back of the soul, beside a box which we label reality.
4.TRICKY...hmm...parts of self drifting in circumspect, a yearning to find pieces of you (lost or seeking), again questioning some sort of 'worth'. this wreaks of an organic earthtone warmth (perhaps a bond between the cryptic 'nature' of nature, the sulfer tears being shed onto the earth...or perhaps it is merely another reflection of inner self, a dimmly lit exposure to the nature of humanity). ripped from you, the pieces of the journey...
5.within this destruction, begin anew with rewired perception. the adaptability within our realms of reasoning are stronger than we believe (or give them credit for). WISDOM!
6.perhaps it can only take an instant to change our lives... one fleeting notch in time to cultivate an ideal.
a yearning to become clay... natural instinct that surrounds humanity, it's breathing down our necks, it's pulsing through our viens, it's moving our limbs, and bowing our spines! the force that binds us all... the spirit that surrounds, the illusion of empathy, cloaked in apathy... in the soundwaves of the air, it pulls innocence out through our mouths and sheds the layers that we were meant to simmer within. we have lost ourselves, and we have let it happen!
oooorrrr...
maybe you were just talking about a 'roadside attraction'...heh, sorry it took me so long to respond to your brilliance... i'm afraid i haven't been able to place myself in that circle (until now).
i apologize for this rediculous rant (and supposed meaning and value of this piece)...at any rate, this is what it means to me!
i love your writing!!! i'm your number one fan!
much respect and fondest regards~
leah
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