I stood still Rigid My eyes peered forward

Time had never Ever Passed so slowly

I did not move My body, frozen The seconds ahead, Fleeting

And yet, So slowly

I wished it would come sooner A wish I would soon Regret

A small foreign object slicing Digging into skin Between my eyes

Time Has Never Passed So Slowly.

A sky full of stars seemed dead and cold; A place once so magical now hurt to behold.

A time of war, a time of killing; That has passed, now we begin rebuilding.

Brethren, lend me a hand; Once again, we will make this place grand.

“We have evolved to live in an ever decaying world,” my teacher preaches. I tune him out for the lecture until the liberating bell releases us students from class.

“Zephyr!” A woman calls for me from a ways away. I walk faster, smiling at her. When I reach her we link arms out of habit. I grin wider, showing off my canines, and peer at the burning sun above. “Hitting the clubs tonight?”

“Yes, obviously,” I reply with extra skip in my step.

I don’t remember much between before and after. All I know is that when my friend and I emerge from our drunken comas, the moon has already began it’s ascent into the sky.

While the average Joe begins his day with a nightly jog, I stumble and stagger my way home. I take full frontal force of their disapproving glances, though I don’t bother caring.

Vince hops between letters on his gigantic keyboard, lungs straining with overuse.

“I am a divine creature!” He grumbles to himself, scowling at a colleague as they pass his fiberglass cubicle, “a fairy as powerful as I should not be degraded to a typing machine!”

“I need these papers photo copied before my meeting, Vince,” instructed a superior, throwing a stack of paper worthy of being a brick on his desk.

“Very well, my lord.” He sighed, swallowing his pride and returning to his mundane tasks.

Mother is a doctor, A shaman, A preacher, Her words and her choices Make all that is wrong Corrected.

I am her patient, Her follower, Her worshiper, I am the wrong She is correcting.

It is believed All children are born Without sin, All but I.

My words are met with, “Hush.” My actions are met with, “Why?” My curiosity is met with Unending lectures Unending shame.

The doctor’s treatments Or the shaman’s spells Not even, The preacher’s sermons, Will fix What she made Of me.

As soon as I exit the police cruiser, I gag on an unwelcome laugh.

I walk towards the scene, a lowly apartment building in the suburbs barricaded with caution tape. Joining my fellow officers, I stare at a heap of fabrics. One of the gloved officers tosses the sheet aside—it required more effort from him than a normal blanket would—revealing a mildly mangled body with a tissue box as a foot and a paint can for a head.

Again, I swallow down a laugh; humor is not usually appropriate at the scene of a murder. “And the victim? Or perhaps… the perpetrator…?” I ask my deputy, who points to a woman shivering with anxiety.

Slowly, so as not to exude intimidation, I make my way towards the victim, “Afternoon,” I start, “can you explain to me the details of the event?”

“I uh… I was going about my day when I heard my unit door open. It was my ex-boyfriend; I guess I forgot to take back his spare key.”

“I see,” I mindlessly reply, busy jotting down notes.

“It was all a blur,” the woman pauses to collect her thoughts, ”Next thing I knew he was chasing me and… and he stepped in a tissue box—my apartments not the cleanest.”

“Go on.”

“It uhm… slowed him down, so I threw my weighted blanket on him; it’s about twenty pounds. That really threw off his balance; he ended up face planting into one of my paint cans—I’m an artist, you see.”

“Oh my.”

“Yeah…”

“Thank you for your time, ma’am.” I say, pocketing my notes and rejoining the clique of officers, “Victim’s statement,” I hand off my notes to a subordinate, “take it back to the station.” He answers with a curt nod and departs to a cruiser of his own.

“So what happened?” A police woman chimes.

“Killer was so disoriented he killed himself. On accident.” I pause to let the stupidity set in, watching their expressions, “Worst assassination attempt if I’ve ever seen one.”

Mother and Father grip my hands tighter than normal, they swing me to-and-fro as I erupt in laughter.

Mother and Father lead me down a tunnel. I’m not afraid, I’ll never be afraid with them at my side.

Mother begins to cry, Father’s fists clench into stone. They nudge me on, “Go on, be brave,” they say, holding onto each other.

Mother and Father wave goodbye.

Three, two, one You’re done. But why? Because I said so.

One, two, three Open wide. I didn’t want to. But still, he poked I gagged.

One, two, three That’s how many teeth I lost

Zero. The amount of virginities I Have Left.

I dash down the hallway as soon as I hear the doorbell ring. Mail. I fumble with the door handle, itching to look through what little attention I get from the outside world. I throw aside the repetitive letters; bills, newspapers, coupons. I stop searching when I find a letter sealed with red wax.

I take the letter to the living room, eyeing the peculiar seal as I plop into the cushions of my leather sofa. Pushing my thumb nail under the wax, I force the seal away from the paper with minimal tearing.

“Dear Past,” I whisper, eye rolling across the page like icing on a cake, “you will not know why I have come for you, but alas, there will be no time for you to run. Most apologetic, Future.”

Instantly, my eyes dart to a figure standing in the archway of the corridor. His features are identical to mine, although his skin is slightly more wrinkled and his hair slightly graying with age.

“Hello, Past,” he started, boots clunking against the wooden floor as he advanced toward me, “I figured sending a letter might be a courtesy.”

“My name is Hal,” I started, lip quivering with anxiety.

“Don’t you think I know that, Halsow. I am you,” he scoffed. Future pulled a modern pistol from a holster hidden under his clothes and cocked the gun at my temple, “I need not explain this, Past. All you need to know is that this is for my own good.”

My last few moments of sensory awareness filled with the sight of a bright flash inches away from my retinas and the feeling of a cold metal bullet ricocheting through the soft tissue of my brain.

The sun and moon, an endless story of chase and repel. If I were water, you’d be oil, and with no soap to bind us together, we will never see eye to eye.

I will never settle. You are mine and mine to me. I have not ownership of you, but it is you that I have claimed for myself. Every conscious moment I dedicate myself to you; my time, my efforts, my belongings, my being itself. You are my purpose, and every conscious moment, I pray that one day I will be the one you chose for yourself.

We are sun and moon, constantly changing, constantly chasing. The moon will always follow the sun, pleading, asking, begging, beseeching for reciprocated love, for the sun is what shed the moon of its darkness. And the sun, despite the moon’s desperation, will answer, “No, I don’t love you,” forevermore.