"i love you to the moon &" by Chen Chen

Let's gather and talk about love, escape, and queerness.

Hello! How are you today? By opening this letter, it means you’ve gathered with me and with a poem for a moment, and that is something to celebrate!

I have not been particularly active recently because I just started grad school and have been mildly swamped. But now more than ever, I’ve been craving some time to sit with a poem and listen to what it has to say. So here I am now, doing exactly that.

I’ve chosen this poem today because it makes me happy–that’s really it. I don’t think that the poem is all happy, but I think that it radiates a type of light over the reader that I have been craving recently. This poem makes me feel bright, and I hope that it does the same for you.

i love you to the moon &
by Chen Chen

not back, let’s not come back, let’s go by the speed of
queer zest & stay up
there & get ourselves a little
moon cottage (so pretty), then start a moon garden

with lots of moon veggies (so healthy), i mean
i was already moonlighting
as an online moonologist
most weekends, so this is the immensely

logical next step, are you
packing your bags yet, don’t forget your
sailor moon jean jacket, let’s wear
our sailor moon jean jackets while twirling in that lighter,

queerer moon gravity, let’s love each other
(so good) on the moon, let’s love
the moon
on the moon 

This is a love poem. This is apparent in the title, which begins with the first half of a common phrase, “i love you to the moon &” I first want to start with the ampersand in the title. The title is read as “I love you to the moon and,” and when presented on the page like that, it appears as an unfinished thought. By using the ampersand, it feels like Chen finishes the thought. To me, the title says: I love you to the moon. And there’s more.” The symbol is stark against the string of letters that precedes it. This is an unfinished thought that has been stylized to be finished, and that gives the first line of the poem a lot of power.

Chen does not finish the phrase in the title with “and back.” Instead, he opts to extend the metaphor. In fact, he specifies that he does not love the person he addresses back from the moon. In the opening lines of the poem, the speaker turns to their lover and says:

not back, let’s not come back, let’s go by the speed of
queer zest & stay up
there

To amend what I wrote earlier, this is a queer love poem about escaping, about being the only two people in the universe, and being sustained by the love they share. Before I continue, I must address the queerness in the poem. Chen Chen uses the word twice: once to describe the speed at which they get to the moon, and the second time to describe the lighter gravity of the moon. Both elements of space and space travel are queer in that they are objectively odd or different (I mean everything in space is). But this use of the word queer is doubling in its definition to illuminate queer love in this poem. These queer lovers want to escape the normalcy, the expectations, and the status quo of the earth and its gravity in favor of some place they can make their own. I think at its core, this poem is about love and escape, of falling in love and finding a safe space to feel and demonstrate that love. 

In fact, the first stanza is an escape plan–traveling at the speed of queer zest, building a moon cottage, and starting a moon garden. A more personal, secretive voice of the speaker comes out in short phrases in parentheses, assuring the lover that the moon will be “so pretty,” the moon vegetables “so healthy.”

After this plot, the speaker seems to acknowledge that this is an unattainable dream. He concedes that this is all folly with the repeated use of moon in new expansions of the word. He says he moonlights as a moonologist (online, and only on the weekends) and it makes sense to jump to the moon. 

I don’t think the speaker is desperate for escape, for solitude with his lover–I think he is wishful.

                     are you
packing your bags yet, don’t forget your
sailor moon jean jacket, let’s wear
our sailor moon jean jackets while twirling

In my mind, all of this scene is bathed in soft white light. Two lovers are dancing in star-themed garb and are staring moon-eyed at each other, desperately in love. The speaker proposes in the end what I consider an evolution of the phrase that started the poem: “let’s love each other / (so good) on the moon.” In this, the speaker says to his lover: “I don’t love you to the moon and back. I want to love you on the moon in our own little world that we create, just the two of us and our love.”

This poem is born from a love of the moon as well, ending with the line “let’s love / the moon / on the moon.” Let’s be queer and be in love in a place we made out of queer love.

If you enjoyed reading this poem… you can read more by Chen Chen here, or check out his most recent collection of poetry “Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency.”

If you are looking for your next read… I just read poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib’s book “There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension” and LOVED it. I cannot recommend this book enough.

If you want to try writing poetry… I know it’s not February, but write a love poem. Write one to someone you love to the moon &. Steal that line if you want!