when you look for the lantern in somebody else’s hands
you spend your whole life chasing shadows in the dark
begging a single person to hold up the sky
and calling them the sun while you freeze in the mud
you swear the magic lives only in their lungs
and without them the room flattens into salt and dust
you sit in the wreckage convinced you are utterly abandoned
believing no one else carries enough blood or grace
to warm the hollow places in your chest
we carry the weight of every burning sorrow
until our own ribs feel like dry branches waiting to snap
we build houses out of old grief and talk to ghosts
forgetting that one human was never built to be a whole temple
a therapist’s patient witness sitting with you through the heavy hours
a partner’s steady palm resting against your shaking back
a friend who sits on the floor beside you while you sob
a room full of kind strangers lending embers to your hearth
offering pieces of a heat you were never meant to generate alone
for the magic was never something they created out of nothing
they were only a piece of glass catching what was already yours
the wonder you worshipped in them was your own soul aching to be named
for loving yourself is the hard spade that turns the dirt back into gold
it unearths the stubborn seed that refused to die in the dark
and proves that healing is a solitary birth cradled by a crowd
we need the hands of the living to pull us from the ditch
so we can learn how to stand in our own skin
when you finally hold your own bruised edges without flinching
the whole world splits open like a raw late-summer peach
you realize the miracle was always your own pulse waiting to be heard
you feel the bright heat you spent years hunting for in strangers
humming right behind your own ribs
and your chest reaches toward the morning
knowing that loss leaves a permanent mark upon the floor
yet the air is still thick with untamed mercy
and when you pass that spark to another tired traveler
when you teach them that they too are worthy of the feast
they learn to dig into their own earth to find the light
and you see that we are all just fragile guides for each other
carrying one another through the grief and back to the porch
where the heart heals in the collective noise of the living
and the whole bruised world begins to mend
one soft sacred breath at a time
and so you learn to walk through the world gently
watching the morning light spill across the plain kitchen floor
listening to the birds sing without needing to understand their song
knowing that simply staying alive is its own quiet revolution
and every time you choose to love the hands that carry you
the grace you thought was gone forever
comes quietly walking home
—lyra moon (you were always the light you thought you lost)
august 21, 2026