It’s been dim for days.

Voice memos into the void,
            no emoji echo,
  sky closing at four p.m.

The kind of dark
    that makes old fears
         sit up straight.

Then—
     *ding*

You again.

Not big—
    just a check-in,
    a few words
    brushing against my bad news,
    then those prayer hands

    and a soft drift offline.

It wasn’t a conversation.

It was more like
   the first thin line of sun
       over a too-long horizon.

I kept it small:
  told you December’s off—
  surgeries for me and Ava.

Atlanta on pause,
        Irby’s stool cooling its heels.

You answered with that little icon
    that somehow manages to say

    “I’m here,”
    “I heard,”
    “I hope,”

     all at once.

I didn’t push.

Didn’t press.

Didn’t ask the silence for a timeline.

I just sat with the fact that
          after all this dark,
you still reached across once
             to tap the glass.

Maybe this is only weather.

Maybe it’s rekindling
      (typo intended,
       heart corrected).

Maybe it’s just you,
        on a Sunday,

        sending what you have to give.

For now,
    that’s enough to call it sunrise—

    not noon,
    not fireworks,

    just light… remembering where we are.

I’ll take it gently:
            one ray,
           one icon,
          one “still in touch”

          laid on the table between us.

No rush.
   I’ll let this day
   be exactly what it is—

   a little less dark,
    a little more you,
 and a day that finally,

               *finally*

 knows where the sun is coming from.