bowl in my hands
before i know what i want
a boy asks me something
and his mouth is a shape
i cannot turn into sound
the noise is a hundred hands
pressing on my chest
somewhere behind the register
a blender screams
and i am already gone
already somewhere smaller
than this room
rice or greens he asks again louder
like volume is the same
as being understood
i can feel my own pulse
in my teeth
every voice in this place
is trying to become the only voice
and none of them win
none of them stop
i am a coin spinning
at the bottom of a jar of coins
i point because pointing
doesn’t need air
i nod because nodding
costs nothing
somewhere a tray drops
and the whole room flinches
as one animal
i am starving
and the hunger has nowhere to land
i want the smallest thing in the world
i want a door
outside the air opens
like a hand uncurling
the street holds still for me
the way no one inside could
i stand there and let the stillness settle
like snow that doesn’t melt
this is what i have been chasing
since i was born into all that sound
a room with no one
asking me anything
a place where my name
finally stops being a question
i think this is what it will be like
when the last door closes
behind me too
no one asking what i want
no one needing to hear me
over anything
just the hush after
just the long clean nothing
holding me the way nothing
in that noisy world ever could
—lyra moon (the word seeking the hush that preceded it)
august 16, 2026