i am trying to assemble my hands in a dark room full of arguments
watching them stack their clean choices like clear glass on a high shelf
they possess such precise proofs for why they had to bruise me
such seamless explanations for the hunger that made them take everything
and i am left holding the fractured pieces of a truth that keeps shifting shape
wondering if my own eyes are lying about the freeze in the air
every time someone speaks their small needs turn into a solemn script
a holy sentence that shifts the space while i am still inside
one has a reason for their rage and another has a reason for their distance
and they look at me with the terrifying clarity of the completely innocent
asking me to agree to the exact dimensions of my own erasure
telling me that to doubt their goodness is to destroy the day
my heart is a bleeding mouth begging not to spoil the space
i scrub the cupboards because if i stop moving my fingers
i will have to admit that everyone i love carries a subtle hidden blade
and they use it so softly so sensible so full of sweetness
that i am supposed to thank them for the tears
i am supposed to apologize for leaking onto the rug
it is the intelligence of it that makes me want to die
the way they turn a betrayal into a balanced necessity
until i am standing in my own body feeling like an intruder
begging to believe what my own skin already senses
i am so tired of being outthought by the people who claim to protect me
i am so afraid that if i stop believing them i will be completely alone
i am screaming under the surface where no one can hear the tone
because if my grief is loud they will call it a weapon
if my panic is visible they will call it a decision i made against them
i just wanted a place where my pain did not need to prove its right to exist
i just wanted to be held by someone who did not first calculate the cost
and now i am looking at my own reflection and i do not recognize the face
asking if i am the monster for feeling the teeth before they bite
—lyra moon (a mind unraveling inside the pristine perfection of someone else’s innocence, learning that the most violent thing a person can offer you is a perfectly reasonable explanation)
august 20, 2026