On that first night away from you, part of me wanted to come back; to turn around and get on a plane and fly straight into the cloud of your perfume. But, what if it had all ended while I was on the plane (and, you know how I hate planes)? 

Nobody was that scared about the Moon. We could see it from the window seats on the left side of the plane: Just a little bigger, a little more bloated than the night we first met and it felt like it was going to fall out of the sky. It was reported as a phenomenon, not a disaster. Like, how you coming back late all those evenings during May was new and exciting, and that work trip you were invited on was career progression and not the start of whatever this is. 

I lied to you so many times. I lied to myself so deeply that every new emotion was behind clouded glass. I pretended I was okay when I wasn’t, and maybe I hate you now. Maybe, you wanted me to lie; wanted me to pretend to be more expansive and accepting; wanted me to be gladly one of many loves you had without jealousy, without complaint. Maybe you didn’t. I honestly don’t know. I wonder how anyone could be okay with this, but I know people are because we read the books. We read the books and I lied to you anyway, and when you asked I always gave the answers I thought you wanted instead of giving you me. 

What would that have looked like? What sort of ugly picture would I have clawed together with tears and spit, a face contorted with heartbreak? Would that have been real? Me with no make-up; me, head bent looking at the tight curls of hair that had fallen and collected in the corners of the hard modern floors of our house. I don’t want to blame anyone else. I want to say it was her. But, it was you. It was always you. 

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I’m on my period again. Not that we were waiting. Were you as sad as I was every time? Is that why it started? (I’m not sure I want to know.)  The news reported the tides are pulling inwards, crawling up beaches to devour homes, but did not report the tides inside me, inside us. 

Tampons and pads are sold out in all the shops I can walk to. You know how much I hate that scented shit, but I don’t have enough reusable pads for this endless period, and I can’t bear to put a cup inside me again, emptying and filling for days. Boiling and sterilizing. I’d rather bloody the sheets, lay naked on the bed and saturate the mattress. I wonder how many days it would take. Did you know that people on the pill are still having periods? Pulled by the Moon through chemical barriers. Hormones tap-dancing to tunes like the pied piper’s children. I don’t remember how that one ends. 

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I just looked it up. All the children drowned.

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I don’t think we’re all going to die. Not, quickly at least. Maybe those of us with periods will grow weak and tired until we can’t be fucked anymore, no lining to impregnate anyway. We’ll die out in pools of blood and those without uteruses, with no lining to shed; they’ll just live until they die, too. I’m not sure about the children. Whether the Moon has called their cycles forth by years. Reached into their future and pulled forth blood that doesn’t exist yet. I hate you— 

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Sorry. That came out of nowhere. But I kind of do hate you, because when we started you said you wanted children, and I want children. And maybe if in this immortal blood I knew at least one cycle produced a chubby baby with fat hands the colour of cinnamon bark and skin as soft as a conker seed, I’d know that this would have been worth it. But it was all for nothing. 

Maybe it’s me I hate. I had so many choices yet I chose you. I kept choosing you. 

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Maybe they’ll make wombs in their remaining lifespans that incubate the embryos, so we get one more generation as we try to push the Moon back. Some must exist already. I wonder if the scientists will value enough the 10 months inside a person to emulate that, or whether these babies will be without that foundation. What that would matter, if it matters at all.

I bought a violin. Well, not bought exactly. I went downstairs to the beautiful music shop, you know, the one we saw in the pictures when I chose this room—to think, this was a business trip and now I’m going to die here—and a guy was closing up and he asked me whether I played anything. I wistfully recapped my desire to play again, and he gave it to me. He said he’d rather give it a home than leave it to be hit by a chair and showered in glass. Well, I’m finally going to learn. Re-learn. Will my grown inelegant fingers remember the shapes they once formed and forgot? Maybe I’ll play for you sometime. Or, the Moon will hit us. Probably, the Moon will hit us.

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There’s rioting. Did I mention that? Some days I’m so tired. I can barely tap the screen to write you this, but people have energy to riot. People blaming the migrants, as if they have ropes attached to the Moon and are pulling it towards us. 

I guess, I’m a migrant here. I’m sure I’d be considered a migrant back home with you, too; or words with deeper tones from mouths thick with poison tongues. Maybe it is me who has ropes on the Moon, as they imagine; calling it forth with terrible magic, singing it to Earth with ropes made of will and blood. My head is pounding. 

I can’t tell if this is a new pain or the pain I’m used to. I can hear them outside, you know. It was supposed to be so great booking this room so close to the city centre but instead I hear everything, warnings, sirens, screaming. I’m terrified all the time. Through my window all I can see is the Moon. I’m going to die here. I thought I would want you with me. Or, not want to be alone. But, I can’t trust myself with someone else. I don’t want to please anyone. Of all the normalcy I no longer have access to, I’m glad that is gone. And, I know things aren’t great right now. They’re awful, but maybe a part of me is okay, because I played a note that was clear and crisp, followed by another, then another. Maybe the Moon will hit the Earth and I'll still be inadequate. I'll be sitting on the floor of this room that isn’t mine with dry scalp and spilt coffee on my oversized t-shirt, playing the three notes on violin I can get right consistently, sitting on clots of period blood that smell like period blood, and I'll be me.

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