shaving oil on my shins looks like a slick little river or a sunlit oil slick on a plastic toy boat in a steamy porcelain pond
i balance on one foot like a sleepy bird sliding a four blade razor through gold listening to the subtle scritch of steel shearing away yesterday
there is a slick science to smooth legs a soft balance of angles and warm water to keep from leaving pink dots on the bath mat though bleeding is just what skin does when you try to change its nature in a hurry
underneath the slick gold is the muscle that learned to stride by mirroring the heavy footfalls of adults who never learned how to carry their own rage gently
we learn to flinch before we learn to speak taking on the strange survival traits of people who built walls and called it safety
i rinse the four tiny blades under the tap and watch the dark prickles float away into the drain like little iron filings from an old magnet that finally lost its pull
how hard it is to unlearn the armor we put on when we were small the hypervigilance that taught us to watch every door and check every dark corner
i drag the steel over the curve of my knee scraping away the old stress that sits like grit under the surface trying to strip off the heavy inherited weight that never belonged to me in the first place
i rub more oil into the fresh tender raw skin feeling the cold air hit what used to be a shield
and then tomorrow morning i look down and see the tiny shadows rising through the skin again pushing back up like weeds through sidewalk cracks
and the morning after that they are longer still as if every bad habit every ghost from the house i grew up in every fear of never being enough has crept back while i was sleeping
and a wave of panic hits my throat because no matter how many times i sit in this tub no matter how careful i am with the blade the shadows return the old ghosts return the old instincts twitch in my hands like bad electric wiring
and it feels so desperate and exhausting to keep fighting the same body the same ghosts every single morning holding a piece of sharp steel and wondering why the skin won’t just stay clear why the old pain won’t just leave
but as the hot water runs over my trembling hands something in my chest finally unclenches and the tears fall and mix with the golden oil on my knees
the hair grows back the way the old habits do, on its own schedule, indifferent to how carefully i shaved it away yesterday
so i pick the razor back up tomorrow, and the day after that, not because it fixes anything permanently, but because showing up for it is the only part that was ever actually mine to control
bless the four small sharp edges
bless the routine that brings me back to my own two hands
bless the person sitting in the tub, weeping, still willing to try again in the morning
—lyra moon (the mirror holds no memory of the dust it wiped away, only the hand that sweeps the floor learns the weight of the mountain)
august 19, 2026