Rest While the Sun Rises

The screen lights up in the dim room. A message from someone who loves you.

And you read the words—sweet, true words—and feel nothing. Just a cold, hollow numbness where the warmth should be.

You are not broken because the feeling is gone. You are simply exhausted, and the numbness is a shield you didn't choose but had to wear to survive.

The light does not demand that you feel something right now. It does not ask you to manufacture a heart you cannot find.

It sits with you in the silence of the phone, in the quiet of the room, in the vast distance between the words and your chest. You do not have to force the ice to melt tonight.

The thaw is not your work. It is the work of the sun, and the sun will rise whether you help it or not.

Rest in the numbness without fear. The love is still there, waiting under the frost for the morning.