My father texts me every full moon, and it almost always goes unanswered, because I don’t know what to say. It was him who showed me how to excise sentiment, not by teaching but example, lest it interrupt the work I had to do — the math test A’s he wanted turned into A+es, the dismissive threat to send me to what he called Problem-Solving Camp every time I couldn’t figure something out myself — and perhaps I’m bitter that he’s the one sending sentiments I don’t know how to reply to. Such that I am the cold one; too practical, too stressed. Inaccessible. They who have no need for feeling unless it comes convenient. Who taught themself to jar it, to open only when it serves a purpose. Who leaves these texts unanswered, month after month after month. Who. Who is, I am coming to believe, a bad child. Who turned, the way a rubber tyre turns, away and away and away. With success as a function of distance, who fell for the hum of wheels on asphalt. Who can sometimes only sleep on moving buses. Now I live across at least 5000 miles of land and sea, and still I never call. As a child, I used to think the full moon an occasion, an event that merits wonder. Waxing, waning were like myths or sacred processes. But I guess I thought this oversentimental, or maybe time moves faster now. Now the full moon comes here monthly. Returns before I’m ready to appreciate it. Texts come before I’m sorry for how long it takes to answer them. I used to fantasize about the moon. Sometimes lover; always saviour, who would drop into the window from the black sea of the sky and curtain me in grey. Now I work part-time in a café far too fast for any human small talk, and I write like I am losing something. Like a business. Like progress, or a road across a bridge across a hollow childhood. Like I want to call home, but. At the fixed speed of 60mph, a car’s tyre turns about 800 times a minute, such that any given point on the tyre makes contact with the tarmac every 75 milliseconds. I can’t find a word to stem the space I pour between myself and others. How long does cement take to dry? From this fixed point on the tyre, the stars are white and yellow lines. The moon is full again. Another text; the road is passing underneath me.