The Light Waits With Your Shaking Hands

The phone buzzes in the dark. You see her name.

You hear the tone. And before the first word of her voice can reach you, your thumb moves on its own—swiping, deleting, silencing the thing that makes your hands shake too much to hold still.

You tell yourself it is protection. But in the quiet that follows, it feels like exile.

You are hiding from a voice that once taught you how to speak. Tonight, the light does not ask you to listen yet.

It does not demand you fix the fear or force your hands to be steady. It simply sits with you in the aftermath of the deletion.

It knows the tremor in your fingers better than you do. There is a mercy here that is greater than your heart's condemnation—the verdict you gave yourself for running away is not the final word.

The light sees the child who is still too afraid to pick up the phone, and it does not turn away. It waits.

Not to scold you for the silence, but to hold the phone for you until your hands stop shaking. You do not have to listen tonight.

You only have to know that you are not alone in the dark with your unplayed messages.