Before the word comes — the throat already shaped around it, the thought needle-sharp, not yet air.

The moment you realize you love someone, before you have admitted this to yourself. You are still safe. The door is still both open and closed.

3:47 a.m. The hour that belongs to neither night nor morning. The body suspended between its two darknesses.

The match touching the striker — that fraction before the catch, when phosphorus exists but flame has not decided yet.

Halfway down the stairs, stopped. Not knowing, suddenly, if you are going up or down. The house around you perfectly still.

The last week of the year. Both decades readable at once — who you were and who you are not yet, sharing the same body for a few more days.

The held note, before the singer decides to release it or carry it further. The room leaning slightly forward.

Falling into sleep but still aware of your hands. The dream beginning to lay itself over the room like a transparency. Both layers true at once.

The second before rain, when the air changes and every living thing knows. Nothing has fallen yet. Everything is already different.

In geometry: the point where two smooth curves meet and suddenly there is an angle. Tenderness becoming knife. Both true of the same location.

The conversation that has changed, and you both know it, and neither has named it yet. Still technically the old thing. Already entirely the new one.