We asked only for heat and movement, careening wildly forward with elbows out scraping the walls, both leaving behind and taking along. Talking like a rabbit warren, all twists and dust and dead ends that only we with our long ears and swift feet could navigate safely. When we emerged we were always cracked and bloody and covered with dirt and sweat and tears, but also unselfconsciously convinced that we had never before been so alive.
Only one day we held a buttercup up to the moon and found all stained yellow a light riddled with cracks and broken places, solid proof that the meteors we had been flinging at each other were damaging everything else, too. And we learned too late that running over a daffodil too early will force it never to bloom again, all greens but no yellows. So in the name of no longer tearing down we tucked in our elbows and kicked dirt over our flames, and learned to walk in running ways. We came strolling out of doors we had never entered, like cameos in a cartoon.
Even still I am not convinced that saving the moon is worth the absence of fever, and coming home at dawn clearheaded and friendly makes my hands curl in smashing ways, makes my elbows reach for the jagged walls. Restless, I tear at my hands unthinking, noticing only when a casual movement causes a jolt of pain through my fingers.
The moon has been around much longer than I have, and withstood far more rocks than I could ever throw.
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