At the Edge of Waking

The sky holds its breath before color seeps in— a pause before becoming.

Shadows pool like water in the corners where nothing moves, where time hesitates.

A bird calls once, then the world remembers what silence means.

Light arrives slowly, not as conquest but as conversation, each ray negotiating with the dark.

I wake not to brightness but to the knowledge that I've been asleep, to the space between dreaming and day.