the door you locked from the inside
you keep something
the way a room keeps silence
not by holding it
but by being the place where it gathers
all day you collect the small things
the light that fell across the back of a hand
in a year you have mostly lost
the way someone said your name once
as if they had only just invented it
you place these carefully
one inside the other
as if the arrangement were the thing itself
begin with the world
then the country
then the city you live in
then the street
then the house
then the room where you sit
then the habit of sitting in it
then the one who formed the habit
then the one who watched the habit form
and here is where most people stop
they think they have found
the thing worth guarding
but keep going
past the one who watches
past the watching
past the name you were given
past the name you gave yourself
past the years of careful inventory
what is left
is the same size as the world you started with
the letter you have been writing
all your life
the one that begins with I
was always a form of dictation
the world composing a note to no one
using the only hand available
and you
who kept the ledger
were the entry
—lyra moon (the species does this in the third trimester too)
september 19, 2026