Talking to the Moon

talking to the moon

BY KRISTEN KIM

Something about nighttime makes the world feel like a stage. 

The lights are turned off, the audience is quiet, 

with only a spotlight illuminating your shadowy figure.

Darkness shrouds your vision, as shadows dance before an invisible audience.

Who could be watching? Who is out there listening?

night creates actors, immerses them in the fervor of their monologues.

The constant din of inner dialogue we endure daily is always drowned out by how busy our world is.

There is hardly any time to sink into a whirlpool of contemplation without missing something that somebody did or said. 

DAY is rampant with noise.

                       flashing lights. 

                       audiences.

There is all at once too much to look at, listen to, remember, process, do.

night doesn’t force you to do anything. 

It gives you the choice.

night strips the sky of its chaos. 

Paints it with darkness and mutes the garish reflection of the sun.

It simplifies the world we live in. 

Shadows swallow buildings whole so apartments look like mountains.

night provides the actor with a backdrop so that they may act. 

night is generous.

I mean, it even makes room for a spotlight 

so that the actor is able to indulge themselves in their performance. 

                              and receives full attention.

From who?

night invites the actor in all of us to perform.

We tend to release our emotions at night precisely because of the stage provided for us.

During the day, the spotlight shines on anyone and anything. What good does that do?

Who are we performing for at night?

What we confess at night is confessed 

because of how the darkness of night 

makes a promise that your secrets will stay hidden under its black curtain.

But DAY shreds this security curtain and shines a harsh, yellow light on what you said last night.

It interrogates you:

“Why would you say the things that you said last night”

You say, “It was the night.”

“What?” 

“It wasn’t me, it was night. I was just performing.”

“For who?”

“The moon.”

“I was talking to the moon last night,” you admit.

“I confessed my secrets.”

Because it was the only thing that would listen.

DAY never listens; it only knows how to talk. And talk. And talk. And talk.

DAY wants the attention to be on itself. Exclusively.

But night lets me talk.

I can perform whole one-man movies: scripted, directed, edited by me. I can reenact scenes from my favorite TV shows. Hell, I can even make up my own TV show and the moon would watch every season. Twice. Maybe even buy some merch. 

But night… 

never talks back.

never responds.

night that was a stage; 

structured by simple dark shadows 

is now flooded with B L A C K.

All I can see is black. I can’t see anything. I thought night was for me. 

I thought night was there for me.

Turns out, night was just a river.

A filthy, opaque river that drowns sunlight in darkness.

A stream where I dump my tears because no one can see them.

A puddle without a reflection where I don’t have to look at how ugly I feel. 

Its currents are just as loud as DAY is, if not even more so.

My ears are deafened by the cacophonous silence of night.

Everything is too quiet, 

           too dark, 

too lonely.

But at least the moon listens to me. 

If only it could talk back.