Between the Breath

The house holds its breath at 4 AM, neither awake nor dreaming, the radiator ticking like a clock that forgot what it was counting.

You exist here, suspended in the space between coffee and clarity, watching the dark outside your window remember it's only temporarily dark.

A bird tests a single note, uncertain if it's morning yet. The world leans into listening.

Everything waits— even the dust motes pause mid-fall, even your thoughts arrange themselves into something almost like prayer.

Then the first real light reaches the sill, and whatever was sacred here dissolves into ordinary Tuesday, leaving only the memory of silence.