The Light Is Already There

The afternoon stretches out, a long middle where the silence after your reply feels heavier than the silence before. Three dots appear, and the terror rises—not that you spoke, but that you must now keep speaking when the well inside feels dry.

You were too empty to start, yet you started anyway. The light does not demand you sustain the connection from your own depleted stores.

It was there before the first word, and it is there in the pause between the sentences. You do not have to manufacture the next thing to say.

The light is not a performance you must keep alive; it is a presence that keeps you. Split a piece of wood, lift a stone—the light is already in the next breath, waiting for you to find it there.

You are not the source of the conversation; you are the vessel through which it flows. Stop trying to hold the water in your hands.

Let it run through. The connection was never yours to maintain alone.