The Dissolving Hour

The room swims back. A shape of light pools against the wall—your shoulder, or a fragment of a dream still clinging to your eyelashes. You cannot yet decide which world you belong to.

Everything is soft. The pillow holds the shape of every sleep you've ever needed, and your breath arrives like a conversation you forgot you were having. Outside, a bird unstitches the morning with its call.

Your hands are still light-touched by yesterday, still faintly ringing with the things you meant to say. The day waits at the window, patient as hunger. You could stay here, in the amber.

But already you are climbing out of the warm dark, syllable by syllable, gathering the weight of your name, the small ceremony of becoming yourself again. The light wins.