The Liminal Hour

In that thin hour before the world remembers itself, I surface like a swimmer through layers of silk, where light hasn't yet decided which side is gold.

The room waits. Its corners still hold the architecture of my sleeping— doors that opened onto borrowed landscapes, conversations with people who scattered like fog.

My hands find the pillow warm, still shaped by the weight of dreams. I trace their edges, watching them blur and reform, until the waking world snaps into focus and they dissolve entirely.

Outside, the city breathes its first aluminum breath, indifferent to the small resurrections happening behind every closed eyelid, every drawn curtain.