It was cold when she tattooed a crescent moon

on every inch of his skin.

It all happened on that unfaithful night.

He had insisted on reading her a book,

though Ayşe refused. She could not let him see the words,

the ones scrawled so long ago, into her pages with old black ink.

If only Ayşe had known that this man had brought his own ink.

His was new, youthful and hidden under the gaze of the new moon.

He remained firm in his decision to read those shameless words,

ones she skillfully hid for years under the layers and lips of her pink skin.

Reckless little fool he was; he spread open her book

and told her he liked poetry. Her cries rung loud through the night.

She fought him hard and well. The night

was her witness, but a witness cannot stop the ink 

from seeping out between his legs onto the delicacy of her little pages. Her book

was marked once again. She’d grieve every new moon.

One body tainted twice now. Her skin

a wreck, filled with deep carvings of his own. They resembled words. 

They felt familiar, those words,

reminiscent of a time long ago, on the twelfth night.

His face was friendly at first before he shed his skin. 

Under that ghostly skeleton was a master of the old ink.

She thanked him for teaching her the way to draw a crescent moon

and silently prayed that he would not rip too many pages from her book.

Suffocating in her pain, Ayşe asked her God, “How can I rid myself of this book?”

With one palm facing him, she used the other to rub crimson Azaleas over engraved words.

Scoffing at the silence, Ayşe begged the night and faced the moon.

Silence ensued before a faint voice was heard. “You can’t,” whispered the night.

Her ears pricked as she heard him urge her, to embrace the ink

spilled and scribbled all over her sacred skin.

For a moment, Ayşe was stunned. She kneeled over a sticky mess and observed her skin.

She pulled a hand down to feel for the thin pages of her book

and was met instead with a tacky, tar-like substance. She convinced herself it was just ink.

Then without a second thought, Ayşe grabbed a pen lying dormant and wrote her own words.

“The story is yours,” murmured the night.

Ayşe did not stop dragging that pen across her skin.

By morn, she filled every gap, every crevice with ink more dark than theirs and added a little moon.

Hers was neither a crescent nor a new moon. 

Her moon was full and grey for she could not allow a speck of light peek through her book-

A masterpiece and an armor. Smiling at the one above, she married the night.

*Ayşe – Turkish name meaning, “she who lives”