i stood in the parking lot behind the pharmacy holding a paper bag full of tiny blue pills
because someone on the internet said wait under the blue awning until 3
i got there at 2:54 and smoothed the front of my skirt
i made my spine very straight like a flagpole trying to belong to the sky
i kept checking my shadow on the asphalt to see if it looked like a girl yet
or if it was still wearing the heavy coat of the boy i had to unmake to get here
a security guard in a dark uniform was eating a cold sandwich on the curb
he was not waiting for a miracle he was just getting paid by the hour to watch the glass
i asked him if he ever felt like his own body was a room he’d been locked inside of
and he chewed his bread and said miss I just make sure nobody breaks the locks
he called me miss without looking up without checking the edges of my chin
and something in my chest cracked open like a window nobody had touched in years
the person with the brown envelope never came and the sun began to go down cold
i stood there until my knees were shaking from the wind and the terrible weight of being perceived
when his shift ended the guard threw his wax paper into the trash
he looked at my bare legs shivering in the gravel and said
i am going to the diner down the street to get a bowl of split pea soup if you want to walk with me
so i walked half a step behind him through 3 dark blocks of barking dogs
wondering how many years i spent treating every stranger like an executioner
we sat in a corner booth with cracked red plastic that smelled like old coffee and bleach
we ate hot french fries with too much salt and drank water from sweating plastic cups
he didn’t ask why my driver’s license had a picture of a dead boy on it
he didn’t ask me to defend my right to exist at his table
and when the waitress brought the check she set it down between us and smiled
and the guard paid for both of us with 2 crumpled 20 dollar bills from his pocket
he looked at me across the table with eyes that were soft and tired and entirely kind
and he said you made it through the day kid you get to keep going
and i put my face into my hands right there in front of the pie display and wept
for a long time and he did not ask me to stop or explain myself
he just refilled his water glass and waited like a man with nowhere better to be
—lyra moon (the guard’s name was printed on a plastic badge but i never once looked at it)
july 30, 2026