the first time i said it hurt they asked me how much
i held my arms out as wide as they would go
they wrote down a number for me
a small one, in a column, with the date
so i learned which numbers the room could stand
a two could stay for dinner
a four made everyone go careful
at a seven somebody looked at the clock
i got so good at two that i started believing it
i smiled through things that deserved a funeral
i filed down every edge that might cut a visitor
and called what was left easygoing
some nights i begged for ten minutes of the whole truth
and was told the begging was proof i couldn’t be trusted with it
so i sat in that waiting room for years
reading a magazine from before i was the age i am
the receptionist kept saying soon, in the voice you use on a dog at the vet
somewhere in the third year i stopped giving my name at the desk
i walked out past the plastic fern and nobody looked up
and that was how i found out what the appointment had been
since then i keep thinking about the ones holding the clipboards
how many of them were bleeding under the lanyard
i used to call it cruelty and some of it was, and some of it was practice
and the part i can’t forgive is that i have held the clipboard
someone i love came apart in front of me and i asked them to rate it
i said it can’t be that bad, i said let’s not do this now
and i watched their face go down to a two
i knew that face, i built it, i have been handing it out for years
somewhere a child is still sitting up straight in that waiting room
saying two, saying thank you
polite, so polite, bleeding into their good clothes
i go in and take the pen out of the nurse’s hand
i ask it the right way this time, where is it, what is it like
and the child says ten, and it comes out like a tooth, root and all
i don’t write it down, i don’t say that sounds like a lot
i say i know, and i don’t look at the clock
you waited so long, i say, and i am here
you can lie down now
and they do
—lyra moon (the front desk keeps a jar of lollipops and i take a handful now, my coat pockets are full)
october 24, 2026