2am

when the words wake you: writing through the stillness

Two in the morning.

The room held its breath like it was waiting for her to finish the sentence.
But she hadn’t started it yet.

The last post was still half-scrawled across the desk,
Crayon dust smudged into the edges of the paper.

Ash under her fingernails — not from fire,
but from the words she hadn’t dared yet to write.

The fan overhead whispered in lazy circles.
Heat pressed against the walls, thick with waiting.

Even the light — soft and gold around the edges — seemed reluctant to settle.
Outside, the world slept.

Yet the feeling of night passing moved through her —
not as sound,
but as shift:
⤷ a rustle in the leaves,
⤷ a cat brushing past the bins,
⤷ a sense that something was awake,
⤷ even if the clocks refused to say so.

Words perched at the edge of her awareness,
not yet formed,
but alive.

Inside, something was shifting.

Her heart, once steady, began to rearrange itself.

The beats, heavy and rhythmic, moved in a way they hadn’t before.
They were settling into something new —
a rhythm she hadn’t yet learned to name.

Some words do that.
They don’t just ask to be written —
they demand to be released.

And when they come,
they move everything.

The breath.
The pulse.
The beat.

She wondered quietly:
⤷ Why do certain words shift the rhythm?
⤷ Why do some lines feel like they’re moving her?
⤷ While others seem to rearrange something deep inside?

And maybe —
maybe this is how unfolding begins.

No noise.
No force.
Just a quiet rearrangement of the inside.

A beat moved.
A breath let go.
A word finally spoken.

Enough to make space.
Enough to allow something good in.

Finally.

P.S. Each week, instead of supporting me, I spotlight a different writer who deserves your attention — and maybe a coffee too.
Scroll down to the comments to meet this week’s.