What kind of world have we built—
one where we long for sunlight in the depths of night,
and chase after the moon beneath the afternoon sky?

The sun no longer sets; it retreats.
Shamed by towers, hidden behind glass and steel.
Maybe that’s why he looked elsewhere.

He was always drawn to the moon.
A devotion I never shared, never questioned.
I assumed it was harmless.
Most obsessions begin that way.

We’d sit at the restaurant on the corner,
and he’d insist we stay outside, even in unbearable heat.
He’d glance up between sentences—
again and again.

When we took our old bikes out,
he once stopped in the middle of the road,
got off without a word,
and looked up.

“Full moon tonight,” he said,
not to me.
Not to anyone.

Some nights I’d find him on the rooftop.
Smoke curling toward the stars.
Eyes fixed on something I could never become.
The way he used to look at me.

I knew, long before he did,
that one day he would leave me for his true love.

And he did.
Not suddenly. Not violently.
But in increments.
Gaze by gaze. Silence by silence.
The kind of departure you don’t notice
until you reach for someone
and find nothing.

I grew to resent the moon—
her calm, her arrogance,
her smug glow.
She never spoke.
She never had to.

She offered him nothing but reflection,
and still, he chose her.

Perhaps he was right to.
She never interrupted.
She never asked for more.
She simply was.

But I—
I asked for things.
Answers. Warmth. Presence.
A little patience.
A little honesty.

I tried, once, to follow his gaze.
To understand what it meant to love something that would never look back.

I looked too long.
He moved on.
I stayed behind.
The moon forgot my name.

I don’t look up anymore.