in the silence, she had understood her. always has. a gentle hand, a comforting soul resting in the dark - her body here, her thoughts elsewhere. yuna has always been keen to the dead, but what about her? what about an ephemeral moon? shall she be the dark side of her?darkness above us, darkness below us, darkness into us. ' i will be your strength. '
            HOLD MY HEART FOR IT HAS GROWN TOO LARGE FOR ME TO CARRY .
this is what it means to be vulnerable  ââ
    toes sunk deep in the moonflowâs depths, water trickling over goose flesh, surface refracting starlight at the moon. in the distance, a fire burns, a conversation crackles; laughter breaks like a blackened log.
    tilt your head back and catch whispers of the smoke, spiderweb thin, proof that a world exists outside of you and her. proof that there is something more intangible than the soul.
    she is there, and you know she is there because youâre touching her and sheâs touching you, but you cannot look at her. not yet. so you look at the water instead, the way it laps against the shore, the ebb and the flow, the quiet way in which it consumes  ââ the hem of your dress weighs as heavy as your heart, and like your heart: it clings. it smothers.
    she is there, and you know she is there because her breaths cut the silence and the tempo of her heart marries yours. you cannot look at her. not yet. so you look at the sky instead, the moon hollowed out by time, a sliver of itself, a promise undone. here, in this place away from the village lights and the campfireâs glow, the stars are numerous. they watch, you think. they ask you to put on a show. to entertain and to dance. to fall and to burn.
    she is there, and you know she is there because her hands are in your hands and she fills the spaces between your fingers like you are two halves of the same whole. calluses mark your palms like constellations, heartlines like milky ways. in another time, in another life, you would have expected her hands to be soft; you would have been surprised they were not. but in this life and this time and this fall of moonbeams, you are not surprised. you think, you guess, you know ââ beneath the billow of her sleeves is a body crafted from sacrifice.
           ( burdens leave their marks.                sometimes she looks like driftwood in the night. )
    she is there, and you know she is there because she watches as you undress in the moonlight. fate splits you at the seams; you pull at the threads. you unravel. you come undone. you spill over your edges and into a basin made by hands tangled in hands. Â
    this is what it means to be vulnerable ââ to grieve the ghosts of the living. to know that she will die or you will die and it will be good and beautiful and right. but it will tear the other asunder. it will turn your hearts to graveyards.
    yuna is quiet as you cry.
                  (  you cannot look at her;                        you cannot see her crying, too. )
