Remaining the Shore When They Drift

The afternoon stretches long and flat, the kind of quiet where a single memory can fill the whole room. You are staring at the dust motes, replaying the last time your child looked at you and the eyes staring back felt like a stranger's.

The distance was not in the space between you, but in the silence that grew inside them. The light does not panic when the connection feels severed.

It does not force the gaze to return. It waits in the middle of the day, steady and unhurried, knowing that the stranger is just a child who has forgotten their root for a moment.

The love that formed them is still the ground they stand on, even when they cannot see it. You do not have to rebuild the bridge today.

You only have to remain the shore. The light sees the child behind the stranger's eyes, and it is not afraid of the distance.