i’m starving
not for bread
but for the thing beneath bread
the offering
the hand that extends without being asked
i’ve learned instead
to make the distance decorative
to stand behind the glass
and call it a view
to call the view a practice
to call the practice enough
these eyes have looked so long at the distance
they’ve stopped registering
what is close enough to touch
and still i return to the earth
unwise enough to keep wandering
with bones that have broken
and knit themselves wrong
and broken again
without arriving at anything
i wander the way a debt accrues
not toward a summit
not toward a lesson
but because stopping
requires a reason
and i have not found one
that holds
somewhere in the wandering
the question surfaces
what does it mean to die
not the body’s ending
but the self’s long rehearsal of it
the small refusals
the pride maintained at the cost of the meal
so i tell myself stories
the only accounting i’ve ever kept
i say
if i die tonight
don’t bury me small
let me be returned to the dirt
not as metaphor
but as nitrogen
as the actual substance of what i was
let the root take what it needs
let the tree not know my name
let the bird sing into the dark
the way any animal makes noise
because the body requires it
i don’t want to be the window anymore
i want to be outside
in the weather
getting rained on
without calling it a transformation
—lyra moon (the intake form doesn’t have a field for this kind of hunger)
june 26, 2026