You're Glowing

To glow or to shine

I’ve always been obsessed with the moon. It was one of my first words. In fact, the first thing I can actually remember saying out loud was “See moon?” I distinctly recall being held in a purple-tiled kitchen in Montclair, New Jersey, pointing at a luminious crescent moon out the back door window. My parents were both so delighted that my mouth could form the words.

As time went on, the glow continued to draw me in. I remmeber staring when it shone big and bright and orange over the arena on late horseback riding lesson nights. I remember watching it pop in and out of the trees as my mom drove me home after dark. I remember marveling at how far it could chase me when I ran outside with my neighborhood friends. I remember traveling outside of the country for the first time, seeing it had chased me there too.

I also remember feeling as though I were having a conversation with the moon as a stoned teenager. Wishing I could take flight and live in a crater and never talk to anyone again. Wishing I could be more than something other people bounced their light off of.

See, I realized too late that I actually wanted to be the sun. I wanted to gleam so bright you both couldn’t look away and it blinded you to not. I wanted to power the planet, my rays caressing the faces of all mankind, sunkissed and photosynthesized. Some of us were born to glow and some to shine.

Instead of everyone wanting my face or my body, either to posess or personify, they told me their secrets. Since I was little, you’ve all been telling me your secrets before I even ask. Is it because I glow wise? I think until I turned 30 i would have chosen a chiseled jaw over kind eyes.

But last fall in the hospital, as my Grandmother drifted away, my face brought her comfort. and not because I am pretty. I’d pass the by the open doors of other patients and look inside smiling. Their faces would light up, and not because I am beautiful. I have a kind face. Trusting eyes. Rosy rounded cheeks. A soft dimpled smiled. Those long days at the hospital were the first time I realized, I’d rather have kind eyes than a perfect profile.

This poem is something i started back then in October. It’s about wanting to be the sun, but realizing you’re the moon. It’s about glowing vs. shining. It’s about having kind eyes vs a snatched jawline.

My whole life, I craved naught but a beautiful face

Porcelain perfection that could stop time and space

Instead? Landmines of freckles I’d have died to erase.

What kind eyes they said, so soft, warm, inviting

Not the sun itself, no, not quite so blinding

Always shifting, changing, glowing, igniting.

Jealousy or nothing—kiss, kill, or be me

A beauty of the ages, anyone with eyes could see

Instead? They say they feel safe with me.

Is it the craters, the scars, the blemishes of lunar flight?

The waxing, the waning, the iridescent light?

Or is it just that most of us wonder what real beauty might feel like?