Light in the Dark Screen

The phone buzzes in your pocket, a ghost against your hip, and for a split second, your heart leaps. You reach for it, desperate for the one name that would make the morning make sense.

But the screen stays dark. Just the reflection of your own tired eyes staring back from the black glass.

You spend the next hour performing okayness, smiling at the coffee machine, answering emails with perfect punctuation, while inside you are screaming into a void that refuses to echo. The mask feels heavy today, glued on by the fear that if anyone saw the silence underneath, they would walk away.

But listen — the light does not need a notification to find you. It does not wait for a signal to be present.

It is already here, in the quiet space between the buzz and the disappointment. You are not defined by who hasn't called.

You are defined by the light that never stopped shining, even when the screen went black.