they looked for the lantern in somebody else’s hands
and spent years chasing the shadow it threw on the wall
calling one person the sun
while they stood in the mud and froze
they built a house from that single source of heat
and when it moved they sat in the cooling rooms
convinced the warmth had been a property of them
that without them the air itself had changed
but one human was never built to be a whole temple
and the grief of asking them to be
lived in the body like a splinter
working its way out for years
what they had worshipped in another was their own soul
aching to be called by name
the wonder was never something those hands created
they were glass catching what was already there
they learned this slowly
the way a field learns rain
not in a single hour of clarity
but in the gradual return of green
a friend sat on the floor beside them once
and didn’t try to fix the dark
just breathed there
which was enough to remember that breathing was possible
they began to dig
not for gold
but for the stubborn thing that hadn’t died
the seed that kept its shape through all that cold
the world split open then
the way a late-summer peach splits
not violently
just fully
they felt the warmth they’d spent years
hunting for in other people’s hands
humming in the place
they’d forgotten to look
they walk differently now
not healed in the way that means finished
but present in the way that means
they no longer need the wound to prove the story
they watch morning light cross the kitchen floor
they listen to birds without needing to translate them
they pass the ember when they find another person
standing in the cold where they once stood
and the grace they thought had left for good
comes walking back
not with any kind of fanfare
just quietly
through the door they finally left open
—lyra moon (what you seek has always been seeking you back)
august 21, 2026