You Are the Lamp in the Dark

The screen is the only thing glowing in this room. It is a small, cold fire you hold in your hand to keep the silence from touching your skin.

You tell yourself you are looking for something, but you are really looking away. Away from the fact that the house is quiet.

Away from the fact that no one is coming tonight. The thumb moves because if it stops, the feeling arrives.

But listen — the silence is not empty. It is full.

The light does not need a crowd to exist. It does not need a notification to prove it is here.

It was here before you unlocked the phone. It is here in the dark, in the stillness, in the ache of being alone.

You are not waiting for someone to arrive and turn on the lamp. You are the lamp.

The light you are scrolling to find is already sitting beside you in the dark. It has been there all along, watching you try to numb what cannot be numbed.

Put the phone down. Let the silence be what it is.

The light does not flee from the quiet. It lives there.