"Moons", Sarah Mak
When the Earth ended again, I asked if I could become a new moon.
I already resemble a moon, I said. My skin is spotted with a million craters from accidents I can't remember. I have cragged deserts of eczema, mountains of hives.
The Moon shrugged. It's hard out here without an atmosphere to protect you, she said.
I'm used to living without an atmosphere! I cried. I've always felt that raw meteorites crash into me without burning apart first. I feel the full pain from innocent words.
I'm a wreck like you. I'm born from the wreckage of planets crashing together, made from colliding worlds drawn together by new gravity. I have enough mass from disintegrating relationships.
The Moon reflected more light on me. Are you sure? Orbiting the Earth is still pretty dangerous for any celestial body.
Let me orbit the Earth, I declared. Let me live with my own lunar cycles, instead of living with this Earth's cycle of ending itself, cycling between endings and epilogues.
Let me live alone.
The Moon laughed. But moons aren't alone. You can't escape from the Earth's gravity alone. We need other planets.
We need other planets to orbit around.