The Amber Threshold

When light finds its way through the narrow gap of almost-sleeping, you don't open your eyes— just feel it, amber and absolute, pressing against the dark you've built.

The world is patient. It has been waiting in the hallway, soft-footed, deliberate. Not rushing. Not demanding. Just there, breathing slowly until you remember how to do the same.

Your body holds this threshold, warm under covers that smell like yesterday, while the day outside arranges itself into hours and obligations and small mercies. The birds have already started their work.

But here, suspended in this amber drowse, you are not yet counted among the living— not quite. Not yet. Just a thickness of breath, a weight of being, before becoming.