At the dying edge of a day,
when the sun hangs by a hair-thin thread,
the light falls yellow-gray, like old paper
against a bedroom wall—

the one you have stared at
from this exact place
every night before sleep,
year upon year.

You have memorized its shape—
where shadows hesitate,
and the light thins—
then loses its nerve on the plaster.

It is worse after Christmas,
when the lights come down,
and the year resumes its ordinary walls—
the wires knotted and put away.

You can still feel them—
ghost-light tucked behind your eyes—
but they come home
when the lights do.

When both are gone,
the house remembers
how to be empty—
the neighbor’s wind chime
counting the wind
like someone still awake.

And your heart,
quiet as moth wings,
drifts along the ordinary walls,
feeling for the light.