you toss your matches into the dry brush of midnight
and ask me why the air is turning to smoke
when i hand you a cup of cooling water
you tell me i am trying to drown you
you turn my softest stillness into a rusted cage
and call me a warden for staying near the door
i am trying to shield your small flame from the gale
while you tell the storm where to hit me hardest
you weave a rope out of every honest word i give you
and ask why i am choking when you pull it tight
you bleed into the river and curse the water for turning red
you shatter the compass in your own two hands
and scream that i have led us both into the deep dark
i sit in the shadows of your sudden tides
watching you turn every green and living leaf
into a handful of ash you can throw in my eyes
i am howling beneath the ice of my own skin
i am tearing my fingernails on the iron of your fear
i stayed awake to keep the salt from reaching your eyes
and you used the tide to pull me under
you tear the roof off our shelter to prove it can rain
and then curse my shadow for not keeping you dry
i gave you every drop of clear sky i had left
and you called the stillness a weapon
i love you like a tree loves the lightning that splits it in two
i love you until my veins feel like dried roots snapping underfoot
i love you through every silent midnight trial where you name me the storm
i am begging you to see that the forest is burning down around us both
i wanted to be the soil that held you steady
i wanted to be the earth where you finally stopped running
and instead i am just the ground you dig up to build your own grave
—lyra moon (i was never the storm, i was only the ground you needed to destroy)
august 25, 2026