Slingshot Moon

Time is a liar. "Just relax," Time told me. "I got this."

Time said I didn't have to do a thing. That I had the easiest job in the world. That all I had to do was wait.

"Do nothing," Time said. "I'll take care of everything." 

But Time lied. I waited and waited and waited. I sat on my hands when they itched to reach out. I bit my lips when they longed to call out. I quietly ticked off days and weeks and months, keeping still under Time's stern gaze.

But Time lied. Nothing was fixed; nothing made better. So now I'm looking for a new truth. And I think I've found it in the rising moon.

Last night the rising moon was a perfect disc of cool white neon. It hung low and heavy in the eastern sky, an unmissable invitation. The road curved as I walked, but I didn't take my eyes off it once.

And every tree seemed to split at the top, like a slingshot cradling a milk-white marble. Branches lined up one after another all down the street, so I could follow this slingshot moon and think about how someday, I will launch myself eastward to be closer to it. Like a slingshot marble I'll fly fast and far, catching the rising moon when it hits exactly the right spot in the sky. I'll let go and drop back to earth, and I'll plant myself there. I'll put my own truths down then, and they'll grow deep and real, like roots. 

That feels like something I can do. That feels like choice and change and control, when the second, minute, and hour hands of time have done nothing but tell me lies.