Between

In the hallway between sleep and waking, the radiator speaks in languages we almost understand— brass throats releasing what they've held.

The city at 3 AM knows something we pretend not to hear: every light is someone's insomnia, every siren a prayer that didn't make it.

We live in the margins of other people's noise, collecting silence like pressed flowers in the volumes no one opens, building small temples from the spaces between.

And still, the kettle boils. The dog shifts. Dust motes drift through the afternoon like we've always done— witnesses to our own lives.