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

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

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

It is worse after Christmas,
when the lights come down
and the year resumes
its plain, familiar rooms—

the wires knotted, put away.

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

And when both are gone,
the house remembers emptiness—
the neighbor’s wind chime
counting the wind
like someone still awake.

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