the first language in my house was hush
i was fluent by four, top of the class
i could fold a whole want down to nothing
and slide it under the door before anyone heard it land
now i am trying to learn the other one
the one with verbs like stay and ask
every sentence comes out in the old accent
and the person across from me nods like it's fine, and pays for it
i fix the grammar and the meaning dies
i learn to say what i need and forget how to hear no
i learn to hear no and i am four years old again, folded
every repair has two new mistakes lined up behind it
my therapist says look how far you've come
i carry the praise in like groceries
and drop it all in the driveway
and leave it there, i can't even bend down for the milk
my head got the lesson in one afternoon
my body is still in the back row, hand half up, afraid of the answer
some days it costs everything i have to get up and act like a person
and it's spent by ten, and the day has barely started
at that table every plate went to the louder need
i learned to eat last and call it manners
i learned that wanting was a bill
and mine was past due before i could read
some weeks i would trade a year of my life to cry
the guard i hired at nine is still on duty
i tell the guard the war is over and the guard looks at the gate
somebody is always at the gate
my apologies show up after the funeral
in the wrong clothes, holding the wrong flowers
the one i love says it's okay, says me too
and i can hear how tired the kindness is
they said let go and i held on harder
i had pictured a door, one clean click, a morning that felt different
what i got is a splinter the skin grew over
every year it closes and i go back in with the needle
some nights i want to throw the whole project in a drawer
and lie down inside hush, ugly but it worked, nobody ever got angry at hush
i have stayed down there for days
then someone says my name like they mean it
and i am at the desk again, hands shaking, opening the book
if i could crouch down in that hallway at nine
i would say the house was on fire and everyone ran to carry the one they could
you were burning too and there was nobody left with hands
so you did the sensible thing, you learned to burn without a sound
and if every step back was the road to you
if all those years of losing ground were me being walked down that hallway
then forgive me for coming so slow, in the wrong accent, in the wrong tense
scream, little one, scream until the walls give
i will not say hush, it was the first word they gave me and i am giving it back
i am so tired and i am coming anyway
i am so late and i am coming anyway
i know exactly how late
and i finally know how to say the other one
stay
stay
stay
i'm staying
—lyra moon (i leave a sandwich at the gate now and it's always gone by morning)
october 23, 2026