When I was a Moonbeam

“When I was a Moonbeam”

When I was a moonbeam—
Starless over air and stream.
Could I have been anything?
Dying in what dark sides cling
To the silver of my many phases—
To the stare of my many faces.

Am I suffocating on the outside?
It seems my faces divide
All over the world below—
Summoned by the face I do not know.
My skin is burning—and this must be
Now, more than ever, what is eating me,
Coming to the surface that you can’t see.

I am pendulous, swaying to and fro:
Between what is real and what I can’t let go.
My palaces, like everything, are led astray.
I can’t see through what carries me away
To what I can’t say to you clearly
As if you could pretend to hear me.

I am just bones, like what you interred
When I begged and begged, but no-one heard
What was wrong since the day you died.
I’m sorry that you never saw me crucified—
You could have handled everything if you had cared
That I was just a boy, I was so scared.
Just like you, I can’t breathe anymore
And where were you so many times before
When I was choking on my own mind?
You were my eyes when I was blind
But you did not see—just like everyone
And when you guided me to my execution
I buried your ashes with the difference
Between your law and Their Sentence
That I could not blame you without my sin
That I could not shed you from my skin.
I’d like a different life—more with you—
Everything is in place—always within view
But I cannot blame you. It was my act
To bleed as my foundations cracked.
It’s that I’m always in love, isn’t it?
Could it ever have been different?
Isn’t that what is filling me with breath?
I don’t blame you, it was my death
In this version of the story, you outlive me
And I am a moonbeam, soaring and free.

© 2022 Marten Hoyle