Putting the whole world under my pen.

It took 10 years for the Italian astrophotographer Marcella Julia Pace to capture these 48 colors of the Moon.

When it's time to let go.

Do you think I could have one more kiss? I’ll find closure on your lips, and then I’ll go. Maybe also one more breakfast, one more lunch, and one more dinner? I’ll be full and happy and we can part. But in between meals, maybe we can lie in bed one more time. One more prolonged moment where time suspends indefinitely as I rest my head on your chest. My hope is if we add up the ‘one mores’ they will equal a lifetime and I’ll never have to get to the part where I let you go. But that’s not real, is it? There are no more 'one mores’. I met you when everything was new and exciting, and the possibilities of the world seemed endless. And they still are. For you, for me. But not for us. Somewhere between then and now, here and there, I guess we didn’t just grow apart, we grew up. When something breaks, if the pieces are large enough, you can fix it. Unfortunately, sometimes things don’t break, they shatter. But when you let the light in, shattered glass will glitter. And in those moments, when the pieces of what we were catch the sun, I’ll remember just how beautiful it was. Just how beautiful it’ll always be. Because it was us. And we were magic. Forever.

“How the hell did you end up here? You used to wrap yourself in fairy tales like a blanket. But it was the cold you loved. Sharp shivers as you uncovered the corpses of Bluebeard’s wives. Sweeter goosebumps as Prince Charming slid one glass slipper over your little toes. A perfect fit. But by the schoolyard, real princesses floated by you on fall winds. You saw the gulf between you and the rich girls and vowed to stop believing in fairy tales. But the stories were in you, deep as poison. If Prince Charming was real, if he could save you…You needed to be saved from the unfairness of everything. When would he come? The answer was a cruel shrug in a hundred fleeting moments. The sneer on Stevie Smith’s face when he called you a fat cow. Uncle Jeff’s hand squeezing your ass in the Thanksgiving kitchen. The accusation in your father’s eyes when you told him what happened. From every boy masquerading as a man that you let into your body, your heart, you learned you didn’t have whatever magic turns a beast into a prince. You surrounded yourself with the girls you’d always resented, hoping to share their power and you hated yourself. And that diminished you even more. And then, right when you thought you might just disappear, he saw you. And you knew somewhere deep it was too good to be true. But you let yourself be swept because he was the first strong enough to lift you. Now in his castle you understand Prince Charming and Bluebeard are the same man. And you don’t get a happy end unless you love both of him. Didn’t you want this? To be loved? Didn’t you want him to crown you? Didn’t you ask for it? Didn’t you ask for it? Didn’t you ask for it? So say you can live like this. Say you love him. Say thank you. Say anything but the truth. What if you can’t love him back?”

“Don’t give up. Remember, it’s always the last key on the key ring that opens the door.”

“Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want.”

“For what it’s worth: It’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.”