THE HOUSE BREATHES DIFFERENTLY AT NIGHT There are nights when the silence is…

THE HOUSE BREATHES DIFFERENTLY AT NIGHT


There are nights
when the silence is too heavy
to be called silence.

It walks.

Not with footsteps
the ear can gather,
but with a weight
the heart cannot ignore.

I tell myself
it is only the wind,
only tiredness,
only a mind
that has forgotten
how to unclench.

Yet every room
feels occupied
by something
I cannot name.

I move from door to door
like a reluctant witness,
checking windows,
checking locks,
checking the breathing
of everyone I love
without leaving my thoughts.

Is Mother still safe?

Has Father returned?

Did my brother
reach where the road
was carrying him?

Will my sisters
wake into another morning
without grief
learning our address?

Questions
multiply like shadows
when the light grows thin.

My mind
is a house of its own,
every corridor
echoing with
what if...

I am tired
of rehearsing tragedies
that have not happened.

Tired
of mistaking fear
for prophecy.

So I kneel.

Not because
I have all the answers,
but because
my hands
have nowhere else
to place their trembling.

"God,
if peace has a door,
leave it open.

If hope still knows my name,
let it answer.

Guard the ones I cannot reach.

Quiet the storms
that keep inventing endings
before the story is told."

Outside,
the night remains
beautiful
and indifferent.

Inside,
I am learning
that courage
is sometimes nothing more
than staying.

Breathing.

Waiting for morning,

until the ordinary day
returns—

not as a burden,

but as a miracle
I almost forgot
to recognise.