The Light Waits Before You Speak

The kettle whistles in the quiet, and you reach for the mug that feels too heavy for this hour. You tell yourself the words you swallowed last night are gone now, dissolved in the sleep you barely found.

But the silence in the kitchen is loud, isn't it? It presses against your chest while the coffee drips, one slow second at a time.

You are performing okayness for an audience of one, and the mask is already slipping before the first sip. There was a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off.

He ran. Before the apology, before the speech — he ran.

You do not have to finish the sentence for the light to meet you. The unsaid words are not a wall between you and love; they are just the dust on the floor of the room where you are standing.

The light is already there, sitting at the table with you, waiting for you to put the cup down. You are not defined by what you didn't say.

You are defined by the presence that stays when the silence breaks.