Me (Moth)
Amber McBride
Fiewel & Friends
Fiction, YA Fantasy/Literary Fiction/Poetry
Themes: Cross-Genre, Diversity, Girl Power, Spirits, Spiritual Themes
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Description
Once, Moth lived big and bold and bright as the sun itself, full of music and dance, destined for
Julliard and a wonderful future... until the car crash that took her family, broke her leg, and left
her with the scar across her face. Maybe if she hadn't burned so bright, hadn't taken up more than
her share of space and energy and life, Death wouldn't have had to balance the books by stealing her
mother and father and beloved brother - or at least Death would've taken her, too. Even the hoodoo
magic learned from her late gray-bearded grandfather can't bring back the dead, nor can it undo the
great mistake of her survival, so she's stuck living as a shadow of herself in the home of an aunt
who hardly seems to notice her, going to a suburban school where nobody bothers talking to her,
trying to shrink herself small enough to disappear altogether.
Then the new boy Sani arrives in school, mere weeks before the end of junior year. Like her, he is
full of music, pencil forever tapping out rhythms. Like her, he is overlooked. Like her, he is
filled to bursting with unspoken pain.
And he, alone of everyone else in the whole world, actually sees Moth - the real her, the girl she's
half-forgotten she is at heart.
Summer is coming, and though neither will say it, both know that this will likely be their only time
together before the world tears them apart again. Can these two broken souls save each other, or will
they end up burning each other to ashes?
Review
This is a poem in the form of a story, or a story in the form of poetry, a tale of deep grief and deeper magic - both the hoodoo traditions of Moth's gray-bearded grandfather and the native Navajo beliefs of half-Native Sani - and how very, very hard it is to heal a shattered dream. Moth blames herself for surviving the crash, for the grief that drives her aunt to drink, for having dared to dream so big that she unbalanced the world... until Sani arrives, a kindred spirit she recognizes from the moment she sets eyes on him. He, too, seems drawn to her, though he hides many secrets and secret pains of his own. More than once, Moth must ask whether his light is the moon to guide her or the flame that will burn her, and the answer is never clear or simple; the traumas that bring them together are the same ones that keep threatening to push them apart. Always, though, is the sense that, however strongly they feel for each other, there will be no long and happy life together; they both hurt too deeply and burn too brightly for their love to last longer than the span of a season, and they both feel driven to squeeze as much love and joy as they can out of that time... and, maybe, possibly, enough healing to keep going on with their own broken lives afterwards. The poetic language lends a surreal sheen to the tale, as does the magic realism that forms the bedrock of Moth's spirituality; there is no doubt that her gray-bearded grandfather's rituals and spells influence her life and fate. A twist at the end nearly drug the story down a half-notch, mostly because it's been overused, but it more or less works here.