Dane Lyn

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small soft planets before the breath

my heart knows
that somewhere
a child is holding a dandelion
like it is a small soft planet.

my heart knows
the ritual is the same everywhere:
inhale,
close your eyes,
decide what you want to keep alive.

did those children make wishes too
before the sky learned the language of sirens.
before adults argued about borders
like they were rearranging furniture.

my heart knows
children do not study geopolitics.
they study ants.
they memorize the exact yellow
of a stubborn flower growing through concrete.

my heart knows
that a wish is just a future
said quietly.
and that somewhere
a child filled their lungs
and blew
and watched the seeds lift
like tiny white parachutes

not knowing that the sky was about to rain death

---

death

we are held
before anything learns its name

arms exist and so does the idea of leaving
neither has won

poppies hang, sleep mid-sentence
forgetting which way is down

what does not land stays in the lesson of hovering
proof that change can pause without vanishing

night opens
but no one enters

stars stay where they are told
I am learning how stillness works

this is not the after,
this is the pause that knows it will be remembered

nothing is taken
nothing is finished

everything is still alive here
and we agree

nothing ends here
because I am holding it

---

what reaches me is beautiful

I only know my ancestry
through stained glass
each shard colored by time:

some sharp with silence,
some bright with memory,
some mirrored.

when I lean into the pane
and search for generations,
I only see my own face

warped by the leaded lines.
the reflections bend my features,
as if I’m only real in pieces

sometimes the cracks whisper,
but I can’t tell if they’re
warning or welcoming.

it’s a garbled transmission,
a storm of static echoing
through cathedral bones.

I tune in every night,
hoping for a story
before it dissolves into hiss.

what reaches me is beautiful
but it isn’t the original sun,
isn’t even celestial.

it’s secondhand light,
bent through colored glass
and centuries of distance.

I press my palms to the window,
try to warm them
on echoes.

---

even gods collapse

dogma knots itself tight, pulling us into inherited orbits
we keep calling duty or family, though it’s only sky-mycelium
threading expectation under our feet.
tradition crowns us in zodiac chains, names older than bone.
but stars lie; their fire is just memory wearing a ghost costume.
sometimes a star must refuse its shape, rupture into new myth.
I choose the supernova over the scripture, the scattering over the cage.
let the sky redraw me
unwritten, ungendered, rising.

---

invocation to whoever is on muse duty this morning

to the one who carries the epic in her throat,
who reminds me that heroes are mostly just people
who refused to shut up
pull up a chair.
help me find a beginning that doesn’t sound decaffeinated.

to the one who twirls metaphors like hair around her finger,
who keeps love notes in the margins of library books,
whisper me something almost romantic,
something I can survive writing.

to the one who hums in the background
of every good idea I almost forget,
tap your rhythm on the desk,
turn my static into melody,
my panic into pacing.

to whichever of you’s on shift—
take your coffee black,
take my devotion with a wink.
if inspiration’s a storm,
let me be the lightning rod.
if it’s a party,
let the floorboards learn our names.

bring the wind,
I’ll bring the glitter.

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Banner Art:
Photo by Jana Ohajdova, Unsplash, 2021