The Light Sitting in Your Dread

The engine cuts off, but the door stays shut. That silence in the driveway is a specific kind of weight — the moment your body knows something is wrong before your mind can name it.

In this long middle of the day, when everyone else is moving and performing okayness, you are frozen by the stillness outside. But the light does not panic when the car stops.

It sits with you in the quiet, refusing to leave you alone with the fear. — You are not abandoned in the pause.

The same light that walked through the streets of old knows what it feels like to wait for a door that does not open. It is right here, in the passenger seat of your dread.

The car is empty, but the presence is full.