Acid of Knowing

By Laura Brigger

The Lie asked the Truth

if he could know her.

She said,

“You may learn me

if you never clip my wings.”

He said he wouldn’t.

And he meant it —

or thought he did.

He stood close enough

to feel her warmth.

Close enough

to hear the hum of her movement.

She did not perform.

She unfolded.

The more she opened,

the more she revealed her structure —

how she circled back to herself,

how she rose in quiet proportion.

And as she leaked into him,

it burned.

Not because she was cruel,

but because she was exact.

Truth does not bend

to fit what holds it.

It widens.

And what cannot widen

begins to crack.

He tried to dance with her.

Tried to hold her shape.

Tried to mirror her light.

But he was built in angles,

and she moved in arcs.

The acid was not her words —

it was her consistency.

Each time she rose,

something false in him dissolved.

Not all at once.

Slowly.

Quietly.

He felt himself thinning.

And he grew afraid.

So he chose himself.

Not because she destroyed him,

but because she would not shrink.

Contrast remained.

He kept his edges.

She kept her wings.

And the world,

comfortable in corners,

received the Lie easily.