Luna and the Lie

by Mariana Zapata

I reminded myself that life was a gift—sometimes one you wanted to return, and other times one you’d want to keep forever, but it was still a gift. The grass might look greener on the other side, but at least you still had grass. There were places in the world that didn’t have any to begin with.

Life was a choice. You get to choose how you handle things. You get to choose how you deal with those things. You get to choose if a rose is beautiful or if its thorns are a menace to your fingers.

All I had ever wanted was to be loved.

I had learned over the years that if you wanted something, you didn’t make it a question. If you made it into a question, sometimes the other person would take it that they had an opportunity to voice an opinion too. You were basically giving them an opening to say no.