the chassis tilts violently riding the lip of two wheels
and the whole world leans into the glass
through the orchard the red leaves spill like a lung
that has simply run out of reasons
chain link dogs screaming into the quiet
and the houses slumping shoulder to shoulder
just waiting to witness the gorgeous wreck
every color here ends in a deep plum purple
the slow inevitable bruise that blooms
after the softer tones quit trying
it is a tuesday built from small rot
a girl learns the grid, the copper wire
the current of her own blood
the sharp machinery of becoming herself
while a cold world watches the clock
they skim the marsh where turtles sink
like heavy ceramic plates
and wild weeds choke out the last of the light
to claim a place in the soil you must first bleed an animal
you press the crushed shells into the mud
wire the empty sky
and dare to call it a country
the shirt reads huge
the shirt reads nothing else holds this terrible weight
then the unwashed tuesdays come crawling back
dispensary neon bleeding pink and green
turning the bedroom into an unmapped coast
the needle finding its familiar hollow home in the flesh
two people betraying each other in identical elegant shapes
until it looks like devotion
until it feels like love
a pulse, then the flat expensive hum of the monitor
someone paid to watch the lifeline go straight
notes the exact minute of the exit on a clipboard
now the wind acts as an eraser
a string of broken words muttered into a sweaty shoulder
a lullaby with nowhere left to land
the car is just a tin reliquary now
a cage for ghosts
we step into the quiet room
where her scent has already cleared out
where even the absence of her
has stopped trying to mean a thing
—lyra moon (the clipboard still has her name on it and nobody has thought to turn the page)
july 6, 2026