allegory for the year we lost to the moon

i.

my first memory of college is emptiness. the vacant room across the hallway from mine, the cordoned-off cubicles, the whole school only half there in the grim light, like a sentence that ends in the middle; i strain my ears in the morning fog, and hear nothing. something is missing from the canvas of these weeks. no one can tell you what it is but it’s there, stalking across the grass to the dining hall, sitting in a corner of the lounge, making eyes at your face in the mirror. every room is secretly lonely. all of our hands are cold.

ii.

my first memory of america is the untangling of wires. my earphones caught in the collar of my too-thin jacket, twenty hours of solitude glued to my bottom lip, i step out of the departure hall with my big suitcase and my small suitcase and my backpack full of singapore and begin to pick at the sleeve of my shirt. no one had told me it would be this cold in DC. no one said winter looked like a road that could kill you. standing there surrounded by strangers and snow and dry afternoon sun, i pretend there’s something in my eyes and wipe them with the back of my hands until everything’s blurry.

iii.

in my first memory of the world i’m two years old and my parents have built a ball pit in the backyard. the balls are soft, squishy plastic, each one a different color than the last, and i’m so enamored i forget to look up and check the sky is still there. i never know what time of the day it is in the ball pit. it could be morning. it could be noon. it could be moments before the sun sets, a held breath on the door hinge of february, a promise not yet made. i crush a plastic red ball between my palms. it screams at me. i keep going.

iv.

you’re standing on a pair of train tracks that lead nowhere and waiting for the train. you don’t know where you’re going but you know you have to leave. you’re running out of time and the back of your throat is on fire. you’re standing on the tracks and waiting for god. you’re standing on the tracks. you have two legs. you’re still standing. you can still run.

v.

this school will fill up in the fall like a gift horse that opens up to reveal all the things you were scared of when you were five. we will wrench the maw open with greedy wanting fingers and pour wet concrete down its throat until the wood is straining to stay intact and all of us are breathless and crowded around the table, licking our lips with anticipation. we will flood the hallways with bodies and rip the dining hall from its foundations. we will run naked and screaming across parrish beach. we will press stories of the last year into each other’s hands like gifts at the end of a birthday party, and we will take each other home, and we will leave the door open in case someone is waiting outside in the cold— 

and when we are lost and lonely and searching for proof of winter’s end, we will find each other in the morning fog by nothing but the sound of our laughter.