Melting Moon Beam

by CAROLYNN SOLORIO

layout JENNIFER JIMENEZ photographer RACHEL KARLS stylist LILY JACARUSO hmua JORDAN BUSARELLO model RACHEL LAZATIN AQUINO

Last night, the moon gave me a gift. She drug her nail against the blackboard of the night and showed me

A way out.

She illuminated the secret path with her warm, blue rays. She kissed me, gently, and sweetly whispered the instructions for escape in my ear.

As she turned her back to me, I flinched. I threw my arm out — grabbed her.

Stay, I begged.

Instead, she smiled, and I saw stars in her mouth. I reached in, grabbing one for my journey. Something to guide you, she giggled, your map toward

A way out.

It wasn’t written in any language I understood, the map. Instead, it was warm and seemed to melt into me. I placed it over my heart, so that the she could show me where I needed to go — exactly where she wanted to send me. The path unfolded before me politely, almost as if she were inviting me to escape … not quite demanding it.

So – I ran! I put the fire of the star, the fire she had forged for me, inside. And I ran! My feet understood what my mind didn’t, following the path she had carved out for me. So close.

So. Close.

Freedom seems so clear beneath the soft, feminine glow of the moon.

Gleaming instruction for

A way out.

She gave me life last night. She grabbed it right out of the sky and put it back inside of me. It had been there before, of course. But I’d lost it somehow. Her kiss reminded me. So did the way that her light excited my skin — woke it up.

I ran back to freedom, back to life.

My chest was lit, the star was burning through me. I am her supernova. What a gift! What a life to be assigned! How much more beautiful life seems when presented in the hands of the moon, of a woman.

So — her gift to me is this. The fire in my chest. The softly lit earth beneath my knowing feet, the chase for life. My own beating, cosmically curated heart.

A way out?

No. A way back. A way back to my own existence, back to myself. Last night, the moon gave me a gift.

She brought me back to life!