mi luna (the only person I’ve ever called this)

Written by Sophia Stopper

Am I literally crazy over you or are you just clearly el amor de mi vida?

There’s no in between. If I’m being honest, I’ve done like: babe and baby, and even called my first serious boyfriend: bear. He called me: flower. And I had a fling call me: petal, before. But I’ve never once called anyone: my moon except for you and I’ve never had anyone call me that. I know it’s a popular saying in Arabic to say to love interests. But it’s not so popular in English. Would you call me: mi luna? Is that what you were doing with that last video of the moon and your poetry or was that a coincidence?

The moon is far–you can only look at it from a distance. This is what characterizes our relationship, isn’t it? This makes me melancholic.

My friend who also has schizoaffective disorder thinks I just want a connection with you. And that I’m imagining it all including her not being sure about the S+A thing having anything to do with me. Which drives me crazy because my therapist said she thought the S+A thing was obviously about me. I think my schizo friend is just scared of what I’m capable of when it comes to you. Are we writing letters to each other in the form of art shows, poetry books, and spoken word video notes? Or nah. I really do not know. And I cannot get a consensus from the peanut gallery.

What I think is crazy is how over-medicated I’ve been over the years which is why I rarely wrote to you. It’s been nearly ten years since I was first diagnosed with psychosis. Between November 2022-May 2025 I was on 25 mg of fluphenazine. The average dose of fluphenazine is 2mg-10mg and I was on 25mg (which is the same dose I was on while I was literally psychotic) for three years. My doctors never lowered it. Just like assed out, sleep-obsessed, and not thinking of you often. Although I still emailed you a Happy Valentine’s Day (and that’s all I said, no punctuation) on February 14th, 2025. Did that drive you crazy?

Then a complication with my health insurance led to me being put from 25mg all of a sudden to 5mg in May 2025 and I eventually had a seizure in the street. But this is when I can pinpoint me starting to write to you semi-daily. Talking. Really interacting with you. For the first time. Since the ceramic studio orbiting in Late Summer-Early Winter (the entirety of Fall, in other words) 2013. Thirteen years ago. Just about.

I’m on 10mg now (which is the highest of the average doses) and I have been for a little over a year. I’m still writing to you. Nonstop for a year for the first time in our lives you are really hearing my soul speak. Revealing to you everything inside my heart. Is it because I’m finally starting to see you clearly or is it because I’m on too low of a dose?

Am I literally crazy over you or are you just clearly el amor de mi vida?

MARS

deimos

How fitting to find dread so quickly on this journey. Oh, old friend, how I know you all too well. Ceaselessly sitting in my periphery, clouding my vision with your billowing smoke for years and years on end.

Though, now that I look directly at you, visiting you in your true home—as my body has only been a temporary residence, passively allowing you to stay, however unwelcome—all I see is this pain, a deeply wounded thing.

All I hear are your cries for care and affection. Calling out so desperately for me to just listen. To be with you as you weep as a willow tree stands at the eye of a storm. To sit with you quietly and allow these tears to fall. This necessity for healing.

And I understand with such clarity, now, that your cries are not bellowing from my path ahead. These cries are a result of having unresolved trauma, this suppression a seemingly easier thing to do.

It is a gift to be invited into your home, to traverse this moon, the spring of your existence. No longer, my dear dread, will I hold pieces of you captive in my body. I choose, instead, to gently release you.

phobos

I come to you, fear, unexpectedly lighter, having returned your kin, dread, to their home.

Bravery comes easily, it appears, when one untethers from chaos.

There is much meaning, I know, in the folds of my skin, sitting on the tips of my eyelashes. Just as the universe is ever-expanding, so is the endless capacity for poetics.

So I will spend little time with you, my dear fear.

For I am thirsty,

so thirsty,

as though I’ve yet to taste

a single drop of water.

Ready to dive deep into this well,

everso eager to continue.

JUPITER

adrastea

You recited

my poetry to me

unexpectedly

as though

you had

my mind

memorized

by heart.

I felt so safe

falling from

your lips.

These lips of

mine,

pressed against

that heart of

yours.

Even through this distance,

I trust in you to feel it.

aitne

I’ve been burning, deeply yearning, for you

since the moment I first heard your voice.

amalthea

I promise the tenderness you saw in me

was not a mirage, but an oasis.

This waterfall is plentiful,

and generous for your drinking.

There is nothing I want more than to nourish you.

To be sure you never go thirsty.

ananke

One of your hands gently on my neck,

the other hand’s fingers on my tongue.

This is not a situation I would feel comfortable in with anyone else.

Though I feel safe in your softness and invite your touch in this way.

Letting go in your presence has brought me inconceivable pleasure.

And now I am savoring every butterfly

you released into my fertile mind’s womb.

aoede

The magnetic confidence

your voice so naturally carries.

When you strum

those vocal chords,

I find myself in awe.

An everso nuanced control

of each tone.

A gradient of emotion,

so composed.

Like a sheet of music

that needs no page

to be written.

You used this musicality of yours

to win my delicate heart’s affection.

And it worked.

I could ride these waves,

your oceanic sound,

from now until

the end of all times’ tomorrows,

happily.

arche

When I think of our momentous beginning,

I can’t help but think of your tender goodbye.

You said,

It was lovely to have a dance with your soul.

An honor.

We move like water, my dear, rivers flowing with tributaries branching out in every direction. Curiously navigating toward and away from each other. Sometimes we run parallel, at one time we did intersect, always searching for those wide open mouths that flow into the one great sea.

When I think of our sweet blue rivers,

deep red blood rushes through these veins.

Silly me to feel such fear

of your warm hearth going cold.

What we share, it’s eternal and

can never be extinguished.

(You said that single poem I wrote for you

made your entire year.

Well, my dear, here is a collection

I wish I could give to you

for the rest of them.)

autonoe

I’m smiling so much these days.

The elegance of you racing across my night sky,

a sudden summer rainstorm

who would eventually leave me

with nothing but poetry.

And when I say poetry,

I mean—everything.

Thank you, angel.

callirrhoe

When I say, you left me

I mean you’ll never really.

Such is the true nature of

when poetry finds itself.

callisto

You outstretched your hand

when you found me

lost

roaming those

dark winding woods.

Trusting me to suckle your fingers.

So sweet and gentle you were.

I drew blood

leaving an open wound.

I’m sorry I was not ready

to receive your generous affection.

Although one day I hope

you may discover,

lucky me,

I found myself

a constellation

after knowing you.

carme

I suppose the best time of any year

to harvest one’s poetics

is after you realize someone has left you drenched in rain, rain so nourishing it sprouts so many poems you have to work day and night in the fields of your mind to keep up with the blooming.

How lovely.

carpo

When I first revealed to you

that I am the living personification of autumn,

you said,

You’re b l o w i n g me away.

. . . I’m a weird mixture of . . .

. . . surprised . . .

. . . almost turned on . . .

. . . almost in . . .

. . . awe . . .

Yes. I am the autumn, my dear.

And I will take—

everything.

chaldene

I’m thankful for this armor. The armor my angel gifted me. This shiny new armor of true affection that I see has begun doing its work to replace that bloodstained armor of distrust I scavenged on the battlefield out of desperation for survival.

cyllene

I said,

I am here. I will give it all to you.

You said,

pleasure yourself.

Bringing me to cum

two times

before you came

once.