The Light Sees Your Silence

The afternoon stretches out, a long corridor of holding your breath while you wait for someone to notice you've stopped. You smile at the screen, you type the reply, you carry the box, all while the air inside your chest grows thin and stale.

The world moves fast enough that no one sees the stillness beneath your ribs. But the light does not need you to gasp for attention to find you.

It sees the silence you are keeping. There is a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off — before the apology, before the speech, he ran.

The light is already running toward the part of you that forgot how to inhale. You do not have to perform life to be alive.

The ache of waiting is met by a presence that arrived before you even knew you were drowning. You are not invisible just because you are quiet.