A Bedtime Lullaby An Lin Hunt-Babcock

A Bedtime Lullaby

By An Lin Hunt-Babcock

I want to shoot the moon. Poke my finger in its soft core. A bullet in its own right. He doesn’t watch where he is going. He wants to prove a point. She’s driving back from work. The stars let her know she’s going home.

I turn on the lights and wait for him. He’s never late. He’s taking too long. He takes his eyes off the road to see the moon looks like a frowny face. He frowns along. She wakes up. She’s bleeding. She can’t locate where it’s coming from.

I can afford to leave him behind, my belly stretched with his money. He’s listening to the news. Another car accident. He shakes his head at the idiots in the world. She clutches her chest, her ticket home.

I am still young. I am still selfish. But he enjoys going to the bar at night. He likes to watch the drunks and pretend to be a real man. She yearns for her sleeping child.

And I never knew. And he knew before I did. With a drink in one hand and the wheel in the other, he feels a certain pride, one that forms like a cyst. A pride you want to squeeze until it pops. And she knew before he did.

I swear on him and her. As he sips his beer. He sees something. A white sheet floating into the air. He scoffs and mumbles something about climate change. She is crawling on the ground. Hands and knees. Almost home is what she tells herself. It’s convincing enough.

I sing to myself. I am hungry for noise. Anything but the sound of radio static because he’s late. The headlights are all pointing to him and sneering. The moon looks away as she parts with herself. Him. Her. It’s always cold before bed.