Before the City Wakes

The streets hold their breath, streetlights still burning their ancient gold against the indigo sky. A pigeon lands on the fire escape, head cocked toward something we can't hear.

The world is softer now— edges blurred, colors muted, as if the morning hasn't decided what color to be yet. Someone's alarm won't go off for minutes still.

A coffee cup steams in a window three floors up, held by hands I'll never know, and I think about all the small rebellions of being awake before we're supposed to— how the city feels like it belongs to us then,

how silence isn't empty, it's full of possibility, the sound of the world not yet choosing what it will become.