a verseau and their prose

[proseaus]

1. Moon gazing

I saw him the way you see the moon when you’re not looking for it.

Not the dramatic kind—the full, cinematic one that makes people stop walking and tilt their faces up like they’re praying.

The ordinary kind. The one you only notice because the street is darker than it should be, and suddenly the light on your skin feels borrowed.

He was far.

Not far in distance—far in permission.

He looked at me once, and it felt like my ribs forgot their job.

I’m telling you this like it’s romantic.

It wasn’t a glance. It wasn’t a polite sweep of the room.

It was a gaze with weight.

The kind that makes you check your posture not because you want to be pretty, but because your body has abruptly decided it is being evaluated by gravity itself.

If I said he looked at me like hunger, you’d think I’m flattering myself.

I’m not.

Hunger is obvious. Hunger is messy. Hunger asks for something.

This was worse.

This was quiet focus.

This was a man who had learned how to control his face and forgot, just for one moment, that he was supposed to.

I went home afterward and stared at my ceiling like it was a confession booth.

That’s what daydreams do—they turn drywall into a witness.

I invented him because the alternative was admitting I wanted him.

So I called him Moon.

Because I’ve always been able to love things I can’t reach.

And because the moon doesn’t ask you to be brave.

It only asks you to look.

[proseaus]

Grief Afterthought

My father would have hated this,

standing unseen at the edge of the room,

jaw clenched tight, anger flaring hot,

as others crowded the spotlight,

while we—his blood, his heart—

were tossed aside, as an afterthought of grief.

He would have screamed in silent fury,

seeing my mother, waiting in line,

second, third, an afterthought,

when it was she who faced

an empty bed, a cold pillow,

a life shared for decades,

now hollowed by absence.

My father would have cursed

to see his eldest child—me,

running frantic, calling ambulances,

filling cold paperwork,

approving makeup, flowers,

and all the meaningless details

that replaced the space

where tears should have been.

He would have hated,

seeing my sibling crying alone,

shouldering tears silently,

swallowing grief to protect

his grandchildren from despair,

his sorrow unseen, unspoken,

buried in quiet resilience.

He would have recoiled,

watching the youngest,

nearly thirty yet reduced

to aimless drives and passwords,

searching distraction,

avoiding the heavy truth

of loss, of loneliness,

of the bitter cold of grief.

He would despise this,

that in our greatest pain,

we learned to mourn alone,

to hide our grief,

judged for strength,

shamed for our silence,

questioned for not collapsing

in theatrical despair.

My father would rage at this injustice,

and in the ache of anger,

I carry his fury,

that in the moment of goodbye,

we were left unseen,

in a coldness he spent his life

trying to shield us from.

[proseaus]

The City I Once Knew

I long to be in my hometown, Where hot days hummed with life, And the air felt like it wrapped me in its arms. But the city I once knew, Where life and laughter echoed, And my father awaited in the threshold — No longer exists.

And they don’t understand what it means to go back, The same airport, the same roads, the same sky, Bracing for the echo of the past Swallowed by shadows of a mirage, And the fear lingers that this time, I’ll meet only the hollow echo of what it was.

I remember the last time I arrived, Knowing it was a forever good-bye. And saw it in his eyes, Becoming part of our sky, Fading into something bigger than the stars, A light so far for me to reach out.

I left to chase my dreams, And as dreams of returning come back, Seeing the plane as I step on the ground, The weight of absence pounds deep within, And the airport is filled to the brim, But he's not there to take me in. And I unravel as the warmth fade, Carving a deeper wound in myself.

The idea of the city feels like a ghost, A shadow of the place I once loved. Warmth that in memories remains, But now have turned cold nightmares, As cold as the empty chair you left.

I long for a home that no longer exists, For a place that will no longer be, Because the heart of it left with him, And all I have are memories of a sun That feels too far to reach, In a city I once knew.

- by proseaus