The Pause Between

The pause between your words is where I live— not in the syllables you've finished, but in the breath before the next one comes.

Your silence holds more weight than sound, the way a valley holds a river's echo longer than the river holds water.

I've learned to read the spaces: the hesitation that means you're thinking of something true, the gap that means you've almost said what matters.

Words are just the furniture we move around to prove the room exists. But you— you are the room. The emptiness itself, breathing.