the concrete ends right here and i begin underneath it, uninvited
look at how i have grown between these two walls, how i find the light even when the space narrows to almost nothing
i do not fight the fence that presses against my bark
i close around it instead, the way skin closes over a splinter it was never given the choice to reject
my roots are tangled deep in the soil you walk on, drinking the rain before it ever reaches your eye
the crown is being built underground first, in the dark, where no one is watching to approve of it
when the wind comes i don’t resist it
i let it strip whatever leaves were already dying and keep what was never going to fall
because i know the difference between bending and being taken apart
the fence went into the ground first
i grew into it anyway, link by link, until the metal rusted the exact shape of my bark and my bark calloused the exact shape of the metal
pull one of us out now and you’ll find teeth marks
i didn’t survive the fence
i ate it, one ring of wood at a time, until it was just another year inside me
—lyra moon (swallowing iron whole until it turns into bark)
may 21, 2026