Warning: slight vagueness ahead. If prose turns your teeth blue, this may not be your thing...
Slivers of the Whole
There are too many lights.
Which is typical, she thinks, of America and its obsession with brash displays. A country determined to shine even if it means stuffing vibrancy down the unprepared traveler's throat. Upon arrival in this nation where capitalism is another word for religion, she had spent several evenings looking toward Jerusalem before she'd registered the reason behind the stark difference in the night sky.
It's never dark enough.
For one who dines on shadows, the manufactured brightness of the expanse above is inconvenient at best and a symbol of loss at worst. Neon blooms in every corner like an invasive species, sparkling weeds sending colored rays upward in a mockery of nature's cycle. It's a reflection of this audacious people, who install intrusive lighting to defy the rights of dark, stretching beyond sensible boundaries in a plea to be seen.
And if the stars are toddlers trampling their inky playground, the natives here act as a mirror, infants wriggling out of the safety net to stampede across the nation with artificial suns forging ahead of their arrival. Demanding to be noticed.
Soon she'll be counted in their numbers.
Perhaps the moon entertains a preference for this land, reaching further across the sky to illuminate its favored children. An ancestor pampering reckless youth. Adoration builds even for annoyances when brief exposure turns to permanence.
She longs for one who bears the unruly mark of America and the sentiments he stirs had forced her out into the open air tonight. Maybe the shining mass, missing the sliver that makes it whole, just strives to kiss his skin, leave a lighted trace while siphoning off the part that is absent in itself.
She can relate.
One should never seek to be whole, her father would say. There would remain nothing to achieve. Cultivating an unsatisfied hunger is a worthy goal but one her appetite can no longer bear. Wishing for the freedom to shout her selfish needs to the flushed night, a spirit embedded with the doctrine of reserve allows only silent rumination. Which does not sustain. Retracing the incidental touches of yesterday are no substitute for the nourishment required today. Streaks of movement overhead give her pause and the child she's never been scans the glittering surface for a sign.
Shooting stars are merely tricks of light.
In the tradition of the dazzling sky and its false brilliance, he comes to her in the manner of any good illusion; unbidden and unreal. There is neither reason for his presence nor grounds to reject it. Moonlight touches where her resolve forbids her to venture but fingers that have tread in night cannot fear what lives in palest shadow. Perhaps the moon is right to revert to a fractured state according to its cycle because the act of becoming whole is worth repeating. In honor of her adopted homeland, she demands to be noticed.
There are not enough lights.