I’m beginning to understand why some people worship the moon. She is solitary but consistent, and she comes to me at the end of the day’s loneliest hour.  

I never looked for the moon in the city. She appeared a few times, unsought, from behind a high-rise, seeming solemn and dismayed at my vice-filled hands. I would turn away and let the lesser halogen light haze away my sober moment.

Here she does not dictate guilt. The Humboldt hills are the arms of a trusted lover, and she sits easy in their embrace. She is happy I am home at last, my bright, benevolent friend. I raise my face to her in trust when I am lonely.

She is not like the sun, who burns my retinas and leaves a neon imprint of regret bobbing in my vision. The moon is homely and accessible. She diets one week and plumps the next. She lets men trample her surface but stays poised, unscathed, serene. I’m beginning to understand why some people worship the moon.