The Light Inside the Waiting

The afternoon stretches out, a long, flat gray where the phone sits silent on the desk. You keep checking it, sure you felt a vibration that never happened.

It is the phantom ring of a life that isn't calling. You are waiting for someone to reach through the screen and pull the glass from your throat, but the screen stays dark.

The silence is not an accident. It is the space where the noise usually drowns out the one voice that never left.

The light does not need to buzz to be present. It does not need to announce itself to be holding you.

While you wait for the rescue that isn't coming, the rescue is already inside the waiting. The glass in your throat cannot stop the light from shining behind your eyes.

You are not abandoned in the quiet. You are the quiet where the light lives.