What the Light Reveals

The dust we never notice becomes visible only in the shaft of afternoon light— particles that were always falling, always floating through the air we breathe, now sudden and undeniable. A beam of light does not create them. It only reveals what was already there, suspended in the space we thought was empty, the transparency we mistook for nothing. We call it beautiful when light finds them. But the dust has been dancing all along— in the dark mornings before windows open, in the closed rooms where no eye catches it, it spirals in the same intricate patterns we only see when the sun arrives to witness. Maybe we are like this too, only luminous when someone's attention settles on us, only real when light decides to look. Or perhaps we shine all the time, and it's just that nobody's watching in the dark between revelations.