Member-only story
Moon Child
A poem
Every once in a while the moon
winks its mischief into a chill into
a birthing night, and freezes a heartbeat white,
covers a fresh face in snow, paints a short life
its own colour. Cruel mother abandoning
her child, banished to the womb
of another.
Worst case scenario, something too
pretty for this world to let live. It begins
all pink like all other things. Then the blood,
residual motherhood, washes off in its first
and last rain. It never
even gets to not feel pain, or gets to know
its deformity was its only mistake.
Being alive, then mercy, then nothing.
A white doe born two winks ago still breathes, spared
of spilling its fresh blood. Her chattering gums
and heart beg for mercy she’ll never know
she doesn’t deserve. With the air of her first breath, she
pleads. She knows nothing else. Her first rain
washes her clean, and she is given what no other
monster affords: to blink away her first sun. It turns her
into a flare, a blaze, a hoofed angel. Her coat
quickly dirties with a life no other monster has been stained with.
