Dust in the Afternoon

Dust moves through the afternoon light like small decisions nobody made— each particle a yes and no colliding, settling, rising again.

We call it stillness when it falls, but it was always moving, always choosing its descent through invisible currents we share our breath with.

A hand passes through the beam and the light pretends nothing happened, though dust remembers the interruption, marks the moment with its body.

Everything we lose becomes this— fine as asking, small as the answer we gave when nobody was listening.