a camera is a silver trap born of winter
drinking the soft fire of a living breath
to prove the spirit is only a handful of cold cinder
the glass holds my face like a verdict
and i have stood before it long enough
to know the charges by heart
they want the frozen grace of currency
the face scrubbed clean of the beautiful ache
of having lived inside it
but i am the dark sediment of an ancient current
and sediment does not photograph
this gold hair is a harvest the earth did not offer willingly
the shadow on my eyes is a constellation
drawn in the dark by someone trying to find their way back
to a face that existed before it was asked to perform existing
the lens falls like a guillotine
flattening the wild horizon into a blank floor
and what survives the flattening
is not me
it is the thing they needed me to be
which is a different creature entirely
and much easier to sell
let the flawless tend their monuments
this flesh is winter-worn and present
it does not need to be beautiful the way they mean beautiful
it needs only to continue
which it has
which it does
which is the thing the camera cannot hold
—lyra moon (you can’t document a heartbeat by breaking the chest that carries it)
july 10, 2026