Month: August 2026

first a single fly in the kitchen
knocking against the window like it wants to tell you something
buzzing by the peaches going soft and sweet on the counter
you laugh, swat at it with a rolled up flyer
summer coming in through a door someone forgot to close

then you find where it started
under the sink, in the crawlspace, in some seam of the house
nobody chose to look for
soft and pale and patient
feeding on whatever gets left too long in the dark
already there before anyone thought to check

now they’re in the light fixtures
they’re in your cereal bowl by morning
a low drone that never quite stops
the house didn’t do this to itself
it just had a crack somewhere, the way every house does
and something slipped in through the seam and stayed

the people who love you don’t leave
they stand steady in your doorway, newspaper still in hand
not because they know how to fix a house like this
but because leaving was never on the list
they’d choose this every single time, given the choice again
this is not a debt you owe them
love was never a ledger, it never learned how to keep score
love just kept the light on and called it nothing

some nights all they do is sit with you in the drone
not swatting, not fixing, just breathing the same thick air
so you’re not the only thing awake in it
they keep the window open no matter how long it takes
some nights that open window is the only prayer they know how to say

but a window is not a hand that reaches in and carries you out
someone can hold a door
only you can walk through it
someone can clear every fly from every room
but the house still has to want to be a house again
still has to remember, softly, slowly, what it felt like
before anything ever got in

so if you’re the house tonight
if the drone drowns out whatever you try to scream
know that the window is open, has been open, will stay open
know that nobody standing there is counting the cost
and know that somewhere under all that noise and nonsense
is the room you used to love being in
waiting for you to come back and find it
waiting for you to open the door from your side too

—lyra moon (devotion builds the frame, but only grace knows how to welcome a stranger home to themselves for the first time)
august 17, 2026

bowl in my hands
before i know what i want
a boy asks me something
and his mouth is a shape
i cannot turn into sound
the noise is a hundred hands
pressing on my chest
somewhere behind the register
a blender screams
and i am already gone
already somewhere smaller
than this room

rice or greens he asks again louder
like volume is the same
as being understood
i can feel my own pulse
in my teeth
every voice in this place
is trying to become the only voice
and none of them win
none of them stop
i am a coin spinning
at the bottom of a jar of coins

i point because pointing
doesn’t need air
i nod because nodding
costs nothing
somewhere a tray drops
and the whole room flinches
as one animal
i am starving
and the hunger has nowhere to land
i want the smallest thing in the world
i want a door

outside the air opens
like a hand uncurling
the street holds still for me
the way no one inside could
i stand there and let the quiet come down
like snow that doesn’t melt
this is what i have been chasing
since i was born into all that sound
a room with no one
asking me anything
a place where my name
finally stops being a question

i think this is what it will be like
when the last door closes
behind me too
no one asking what i want
no one needing to hear me
over anything
just the hush after
just the long clean silence
holding me the way nothing
in that noisy world ever could

—lyra moon (the word seeking the silence that preceded it)
august 16, 2026

beware of the big butt biting bass
deep in the water it’s felt on your ass
it nibbles the edges of very old fears
and washes away all the rust of the years

once the dark surface pulled down from below
a lungful of shadows a cold undertow
so you built up a castle of dry dusty stone
safe on the shoreline but safe and alone

then a sharp flash in the sun-dappled blue
a sweet sudden touch that is tender and true
no monster below just someone who sneaks
a quick playful pinch to bring blush to your cheeks

and suddenly riverbed ripples and sky
are buzzing with magic as old ghosts pass by
the deep isn’t waiting to swallow you whole
it’s holding you up while you loosen your hold

–lyra moon (the same depths that once took your breath away are now teaching you how to breathe)
august 15, 2026

i held my hands out to the early frost
half-expecting the air to bite back
half-expecting the cold to remember my name
and call me a liar for coming back outside

instead, the ground was just the ground
damp and dark and unconcerned with what i had broken
the soil didn’t ask me to prove I was worthy of standing on it
it just held me

i walked until the trees stopped whispering about the dark
until the grey moss gave way to wild clover
and there, tucked inside the hollow of an old birch,
was a drop of resin catching the low sun
burning gold, burning completely alive

i touched it with a knuckle
and felt a sudden, terrible warmth
the kind that makes you realize how long you’ve been freezing
without ever knowing you were cold

the world isn’t an empty room
it is a million small doors swinging wide all at once
it is the sudden, reckless bloom of clover through asphalt
it is the river deciding, every single morning,
that it still wants to run toward the sea

i know the spiral will bend downward again
i know the cold will come back to ask for what i owe it
and there will be nights when the water rises to my chin
and i forget how to keep my lungs full

but i am not a ghost who survived the flood
i am someone who learned how to stand on the shore for a moment
look at the sunlight spilling across the moss
look at how simple it is for the sky to turn blue again

i know i will have to go back into the shadow someday
i know peace is only ever something we borrow
but right now, the sun is burning my shoulders
and it is enough to have been warm, even just for today

—lyra moon (and the hardest part of surviving the dark is knowing you’ll have to learn to live through it again and again)
august 14, 2026

cold water over my wrists
watching the sink fill up and drain
over and over
trying to remember what my hands looked like
before they learned how to ruin things

i thought if i stopped moving
the morning might forget to leave me behind

there is an empty room where my chest used to be
no fever left
no anger
just a heavy, patient frost
filling the corners of the floor

i can hear it breathing outside the door
that dark, familiar weight
it knows my real name
the one i am too tired to answer to anymore

i traded every gentle piece of myself
just to feel nothing for a single second
and now the air is thick with smoke
and the sunlight doesn’t reach the glass

i tried to reach the bank
i swear to you i reached until my arms burned
i didn’t want to drown tonight
i just wanted the noise in my head to stop

i am so sorry
i swallowed the light until there was nothing left
i only wanted to rest
and instead i broke the only thing that was keeping us safe

if the shadow comes for you next
don’t look at it
just remember that i loved you from the very bottom of the water
remember that i loved you
even when i couldn’t keep my head above the tide

—lyra moon (and the hardest thing about drowning is knowing you took the light down with you)
august 13, 2026

the world is waiting for you to stop fighting yourself
it has kept the porch light on the whole time
you don’t have to earn the right to look at the stars
or pretend you are made of stone when you are soft
the minute you put down the armor
the whole room fills with light

you think you need a miracle to feel whole
when the miracle is just forgiving your own hands
for holding so much grief
when you finally look in the mirror and offer peace
every stranger on the street turns into a holy thing
and the trees start speaking a language you used to know

to love yourself is not to build a monument out of pride
it is simply dropping the knife you keep turned inward
it begins when you treat your own frail heart
with the same soft patience you give a wounded bird
you don’t have to fix every broken thread
to realize the cloth is already sacred

you have been standing inside a goldmine with your eyes closed
demanding that the darkness prove its value to you
when you stop punishing yourself for being human
you unlock the eyes that actually see
you realize that everyone you pass is also trying to survive
and suddenly you are capable of holding their light too

love is not something you gather from the outside
it is the lens you wipe clean with your own mercy
once you learn to be gentle with who you are
the oceans get larger and the colors come back
and you realize the magic was never missing at all
it was just waiting for you to let it in

you were never broken, only blind to your own radius
and once you forgive the person taking these steps
you become the source of every miracle you ever asked for
the whole universe opens like a door you already had the key to

think of the child you used to be, sitting alone in the dark
holding their knees and waiting for someone to come save them
they are still inside you, watching every cruel word you say to yourself
and wondering why the adult they grew into turned out to be their hardest tormentor
the moment you finally bow your head, wrap your arms around your own chest
and whisper to that child “I am so sorry I took so long, but I am here now and I love you”
that is the moment the dam breaks, and the whole world floods with a wonder so deep you will fall to your knees weeping

what a breathtaking place to begin

—lyra moon (we only ever search for light when we forget we are the match)
august 11, 2026

you are allowed to be afraid
of what remains when the fire goes out
of the stillness where the lash used to fall
of a silence that doesn’t demand a sacrifice

the script is so heavy
because you have memorized every line
you know how to play the captive
how to turn the iron into a home
how to mistake the familiar cage for safety

this is not a scene you have to finish
this is not a stanza that requires more blood to balance the ink
the page ends whenever you stop writing the pain into existence

the sky does not seek your sorrow to prove you are grounded
the earth will hold your weight without a toll
you don’t have to keep building the fire
just to prove you can survive the bur

unclasp the armor
it was only ever made of paper anyway

—lyra moon (this is just the glass reflecting the fire, break the mirror)
august 9, 2026

i have spent a life with glue on my fingers
trying to mend the shattered edge of morning
trying to fit the spilled light back into the jar
believing the world was a machine that needed my hands
believing every tear in the fabric was a call to my name

i thought if i held hard enough the cup would not fall
i thought if i loved enough the breath would not leave
i thought repair was the only true worship
the only way to prove i was worthy of staying

and then the autumn came softly
and the leaves simply slipped from the branch that carried them
they fell into the dark earth like gifts
unbroken and quiet and complete

it is not a failure that the wood rots into moss
it is not a mistake that the bird leaves the nest cold
the ache in the chest is not a sign of ruin
it is just the weight of love learning how to stretch

we carry the weight of what we cannot keep
we press our cheeks against the cold stone
and pray for it to warm under our skin
we ask the tide to stop its pulling
we ask the night to hold its breath

death comes like a mother in the quiet room
she does not come to punish the thread
she comes to gather the weave
she comes to take the tired hands out of the work

we were never shattered
we were only temporary
we were only light passing through a glass
that was always meant to crack

look at your hands now
empty and trembling in the dark
they do not need to fix the night
they only need to feel it
closing softly over everything you ever loved

—lyra moon (to stop holding the world together is not the end of devotion but the beginning of letting it hold you)

the dust will settle where it falls
the dirt never needs a receipt
the heavy stones they hand you
were never yours to carry

who convinced you
that air has to be bought with an edge
who told you
the house has to burn down completely
before you are allowed to rest in the cool ash

the iron weight in your ribs is real
the tide rising to your chin is real
you don’t need a rusted badge
to prove you are drowning in the deep

you can simply drop the heavy oars
you can let the mountain ranges build themselves
you can let the harsh noise bark at an empty sky
and watch the thick cords unravel
not severed by steel
but undone because you chose to stop pulling

the key has always been warm inside your palm
no sacrifice required
no price etched into the surface
just unclamp your fingers
let it all crash to the dirt
and feel how light your lungs can finally be

—lyra moon (the freedom was never on the other side of pain, it was in the hands that refused to hold it any longer)
august 7, 2026

the chassis tilts violently riding the lip of two wheels
and the whole world leans into the glass
through the orchard the red leaves spill like a lung finally giving up the ghost
chain link dogs screaming into the quiet
and the houses slumping shoulder to shoulder
just waiting to witness the gorgeous wreck
every color here ends in a deep plum purple
the slow inevitable bruise that blooms after the softer tones quit trying

it is a tuesday built from small rot
a girl learns the grid, the copper wire, the current of her own blood
her chest stamped with her own ghost face
until the ink bleeds thin and gray against the skin
learning the sharp machinery of becoming herself
while a cold world watches the clock
they skim the marsh where turtles sink like heavy ceramic plates
and wild weeds choke out the last of the light
a cheap film, an island romance fading to white
before she can even thank the air for breathing

to claim a place in the soil you must first bleed an animal
you press the crushed shells into the mud, wire the empty sky
and dare to call it a country
the shirt reads huge
the shirt reads nothing else holds this terrible weight

then the unwashed tuesdays come crawling back
dispensary neon bleeding pink and green
turning the bedroom into an unmapped coast
the needle finding its familiar hollow home in the flesh
two people betraying each other in identical, elegant shapes
until it looks like devotion
until it feels like love
a pulse, then the flat expensive hum of the monitor
someone paid to watch the lifeline go straight
notes the exact minute of the exit on a clipboard

now the wind acts as an eraser
a string of broken words muttered into a sweaty shoulder
a lullaby with nowhere left to land
the beginning and what it broke
the car is just a tin reliquary now, a cage for ghosts
we step into the quiet room where her scent has already cleared out
where even the absence of her has stopped trying to mean a thing

— lyra moon (we are just two ghosts tracing our names on a burning canvas)
july 6, 2026