There were couples at the string and porcelain tables, working together in comfortable silence. I wanted to lie down at their feet like a pet. I want to be a lovely couple’s little dog. I’ll eat the little scraps they give me, broken shards, fraying edges, and tape. 

This is the first time I feel neutral, having my heart broken. It just feels like the love is gone. The foam of days surrounds me, chokes me. I watched a video of a virtual body being sucked into a corn silo sinkhole. The toneless narrator explained that the person suffocates not because their mouth is filled with corn, but because the pressure from the mass of corn crushes their chest before they even have a chance to inhale a kernel. 

One of the couples at the retrospective was trying to recreate a plate. They were quietly puzzling over all the pieces across all the tables, attempting to find the ones that fit. Together, they had reconstructed a third of a plate. 

Why hadn’t I thought to make a plate? I cupped my pieces in my hand, my nothing thing, my nonsense. I can’t remember any plate shapes. 

I think of the last text I sent: 

Thinking of you, accompanied by a picture of that night’s full moon. 

I feel déjà vuwash over me. I’ve sent this text several times before, somehow always before the end. You know someone is in love when they look wistfully at the moon. 

It is always there, even in the light of day. A constant reminder. I see a crescent moon in the shape of my bite of bread. The moon was ours, and now it is only mine. Mine. I roll the word around my tongue like a pellet. 

I look down into a puddle of watery mud as I wait to cross the street. My moonpie face reflects back at me—always a little too white, too round to be particularly attractive. I disrupt the reflection with a rock. I take it back; the moon, my feelings, my self. I steal it back until there is no moon.