New Moon

By: J.R. Harrington

January comes and goes, deep freezes, ebbs and flows. The eavestroughs overflow with perfect crystalline white snow. Backyard pools are full of ice, solid to the core. Wind roars, distant beasts howl along. Cacophonous windchimes clatter together, making music to sleep restlessly through the night.

There are plants in every window, soaking up sunshine, starshine, moonshine. Cherries dipped in alcohol, sour against your willing tongue. Spices in a cup, grainy going down. Sand and snails in your tea, worms and dirt pudding.

Swimming in your sorrows, black lipgloss staining white teeth. Old hand mirrors held against your cheek, do I still look the same? Young and old, medications with a side-effect of weight gain; maybe I’ll fit back into the clothes I slimmed down too much to fit properly into, maybe I’ll gain enough fat to survive a famine.

White fur on black coats, tawny, auburn, raven-black hairs caught in the tines of your brush. That old comb your grandmother owned, with the pearls and rubies on the handle. Those old fans your grandmother owned, that music box with the tune matching the one you bought at the thrift. Red and black cardigan with shoulder pads, pleather pants.

Overgrown plants in deteriorating buildings. Snow on the ramparts, snow in the windowsills, snow on the rotting floorboards of that old sanatorium, plagued by fire and graffiti and all manner of beasts. Ivy crawling up the walls, tearing through the plaster, cracking old red bricks. Cascading willow branches, the tinkling of ice sheets going over an edge and breaking into a stream.

Tights worn under your long skirts. Slick fabric, woolen coats, thick hats and earmuffs. Ice skating in a dream, clumsy even in your own mind. Soaring through skies, ducking into oceanic caves, going back in time and changing the world so everyone looks the same. Back to Western New York, back to the time that is right with a girl who is not.

She doesn’t love you, they never would. You can’t find a soul who can carry your weight, they fall asleep listening to the drone of your poems. Sunday migraines, Monday headaches. Waking once a night, rushing to the bathroom, struggling to fall back to sleep. No coffee all week, then four in one day. Chain necklaces to weigh down your feather-light soul.

Chipped nail polish divination, tea leaves in an empty cup. Songs you’ve never heard before played loud on the radio. Shiny new things, Garfield socks. Drifting off, up and away. Hay fever, old horses, climbing up the rafters, limping down the aisle. Bloodstained chipped teeth, wrecked incisors ripping ragged holes.

Pocketed old television guides, forever stamps to send letters to grandma. Watching videos, playing games, breathing vapors off your best friend’s lips. Paint left to dry on your fingertips, oil-splatters on neat canvases. Creased pages, broken spines, home libraries lost in time.

Hidden depths to sinless souls, spots burned through polyester coats. Extra-sensory perception, grandma’s saying hi. She trails you to the bus stop and watches you smoking menthol cigarettes with your friends, selfishly you read her the beginning of a piece you wrote; she’s in a hospital bed and there’s nothing else to talk about, she’s in a coffin and you stare waiting for her chest to rise.

Rhythmic drumming, shredding guitars. Shredded shirts and pants, stripes to make you wider, stripes to make you taller, periwinkle purple. Devices that won’t charge, portable CD players spinning, spinning, spinning. Cats struggling in your arms, two scratches of

indeterminate origin marring your arm. Blood, blood, dripping down the drain, filling up your brain. Fearing the loss of control, betting it all.

Leather straps on your wrists, new stories started and abandoned, started and abandoned, force yourself to work on one thing at once, force yourself to muddle on through. Type with reckless abandon, pick up microscopic specks of love and fit them together into portraits of lives lived carelessly.

Run a mile on the treadmill and step off feeling two inches taller than usual, weightless. Your knee buckles, hold it carefully bent. Remind yourself that you need to get a cane, forget again and again for years. Lean against walls, lean against railings, lean against tables. Broken down lean-to, shoddy craftsmanship, snapped tendon tender in the shell of your flesh.

Pipe music into achy ears, watch your eyelids droop, watch your eyes fill with tears. Refuse to blink. Tear off your nails with your teeth so you can’t claw yourself up, scrape off nail polish one speck at a time, saving it for later. Thirteen days, a list of ways to fill the time. Trying to do handstands in your single bedroom, pacing up and down the halls. Hearts filled with fears, torn skin straining over bony knuckles.

Playful fistfights, squirming in the hot tub. Bruised bites, tiny mites. The impression of teeth on your shoulder, permanent nerve damage. Blue and purple and green on your thigh, ripped tights worn under safety-pinned black skirts. Suspenders, bathing suits, cold grass and corn toss and alcoholic seltzers. Hair ties leaving red indentations on your wrists. Peeling pleather pants. Figure eights, pacing the room, prowling like a wild beast locked in. Staring into ocean eyes, licking stripes on delicate hands.

The slight shimmer of cheap shampoo. Chemical sweetness, red dye. Black hair dye, the beginning of a new life. Cheap tattoos, black ink, black hair, black nails, black lips. Sweet tooth, savory tongue. Nipping necks, fingers trailing sensitive shoulders. Romanticizing even the most mundane acts, being bitten, biting. Cold stinging at your hands, thick hand creams rubbed into dry skin.

White moth-eaten scarves. Black fluffy gloves. Black coat, black blazer, cream cardigan with terrible green stitching to pull together dog-bitten holes. New kicks, sweet licks. Red stained lips, black printed kiss. Visible veins painted, Victorian. Tudor-style walls, distant doors in empty halls. Locks and keys, prayers made on bent knees. Pleading with God in the shower, standing under the tap with your clothes on. Staining printer paper with tea, pressing every published note into a packet.

Frantic energy, frazzled. Frizzy hair, thin in winter air. Snowflakes that don’t look quite right. Snowglobes shaken, cracks, wet splat, glitter crushed into carpets, tiger lily pollen. Books read again and again, flicking hands, monster arms. Juggling every little thing. Writing poems for the week in an hour, realizing how many years you’ve wasted drowning in each miserable down-swing, how many times you’ve tried to start again.

Star-shaped sand on distant beaches, glowing algae in the dark. Watching for turtle-egg thieves, falling asleep on the sand, curled up hand in hand. Lovers, friends, countrymen. Farm-grown, fresh, hopping skipping feet avoiding sharp thorns in soft plains. Gently rounded calves, gaining muscle in your arms, becoming more normal, more human.

Four pills a day for psychosis, three for anxiety, one for depression. Suddenly you’re beautiful again, suddenly you’re the average man. And you haven’t lost your sparkle, but you don’t shake in the night. Sleeping soundly, dreaming deeply. The night doesn’t scare you

anymore, it’s just another time of day. You don’t need to rest with a knife in hand, you don’t need to stare at the door as you slowly trail off into the unthinking darkness. You don’t need to be perfect, you don’t always worry about who you are.

The sky isn’t dark anymore, it’s white and baby blue with snowfall. You fall in love with each motion you make, each gentle dance, each speeding pace. You read more slowly, taking your time—there’s so much more time, these days, nothing is blurry, your lens is finally more focused. Passion knocks at the door, words tumble into fallen leaves with casual competency.

Three times a day, eight AM, two PM, ten PM. That’s all it takes to get a hold of your day. You have an appetite, you can do more than one thing. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Write, read, game, walk a mile, conquer the world. Win at cards against your grandmother, drink cherry soda, eat as many snacks as you like. Build a life for yourself. Write eight pages in a day, grin and dance and jump and lie on the floor without thinking of the earth swallowing you whole.

All the edge pieces are together, puzzle part way done. Fill in the blanks, fill in the middle, finish the canvas, complete the book. Every moment leading to the next to the next to the next and BAM! It’s been a week and you’re perfect and pretty, it’s been a week and you’re smiling, it’s been a week and your characters are so human. Thirteen days free, that number doesn’t feel so unlucky now.

Rumbling stomachs, stinking farts, so human, so normal. Soft skin, you don’t feel alien anymore. Alive, alive, the gash on your finger proves it, the beat of your heart proves it, the swell of your lungs proves it. Therapy appointments set, moving date set, pick up your pills at the pharmacy, smile through small-talk, sit quietly and type, walk up and down and over and back.

There’s so much time! There’s so much to do! After you move you’ll work on that painting, after you move you’ll walk twenty minutes everyday, after you move you’ll see old friends, your ex. You’ll smile in his face and trail a finger along his knuckles, you’ll press your lips to the back of his hand, you’ll laugh at one of his jokes and, and, and. So much more, nothing less, the only thing that’s changed is you but it’s so much better, so much better, winter’s deader but you’re so much better.

Everyday you’ll write, resolutions not broken this time. Everyday you’ll find some small way to improve your life. Everyday you’ll turn a card, flick-swick, flick-swick. Every sunrise brings something new, every sunset brings slumber with it, every cigarette you smoke you’ll think “I’m free, I’m free, and I’m never going back to that darkness.” Every second you’ll think “I’m so glad I didn’t die the first time I thought of it; and isn’t that a funny thought!”

You become your own opposite, sorrowful scholar meet joyful goth. Blonde roots showing through raven-hued dye, blue eyes, the swoop of your transparent eyelashes, eyeshadow smeared on with fingertips. Pecking fingers at the keys, practicing thumb rolls for when you get back to your piano.

Dreaming of the day your passion will be your personhood, you’ll make money doing what you love. Some teen will annotate a book of your memoirs, will long for the transformation you underwent when you gained all this joy, changed oh so much, became someone becoming. A growing thing, a new moon phase. The only advice you can offer; Don’t be afraid to take the help you need. Don’t be afraid to spend the time. Don’t be afraid of all the things you have to do to make it out okay.

Make promises you won’t keep, stay up late counting sheep. Write out every plan to look back on, keep each scrap of progress in a jar. Dry your flowers upside-down, the shape keeps better that way. Crush dried orange peels and put them in a jar for the smell of summer through the fall. Run down wet grass hills, trip and belly-flop. Spin in circles and dance awkwardly, think about love, think about lust, think of yourself only as beautiful, reflect on each thought, let yourself know when you’re wrong.

And live. Live a million lives in one, live vibrantly. Life in muted tones and bold neons, live in stockings and stolen sweaters. Live under bridges, live high up in trees. Get leeches, get bugbites, get punched on accident and on purpose. Get arrested, get institutionalized, just live, live, live. You don’t have to make anyone proud but yourself.