Hypnopomp

I didn’t wake so much as surface. The dream hadn’t gone. It had thinned, sure, but it lingered like smoke in wood, soaked in the grain of the walls, lying somewhere in the corner of the ceiling, too stubborn to leave. A hallway of velvet and fog kept appearing behind my eyelids, where a mouth I didn’t recognize pressed against the side of my cheek, breathing secrets in the logic of dreams. There was no face, only the suggestion of warmth and want, and somewhere behind her, oranges glowed under black trees, and something with too many legs played a harp I couldn’t hear. The sound may have been beautiful. Or terrible. Or both. I didn’t chase it. I let it follow me back.

I wasn’t a body yet. Not really. My arms hadn’t voted on motion, and my chest, whatever it contained, stayed quiet and uncommitted. I didn’t float. I didn’t fall. I just was , like a story with no punctuation, soft and shifting and nowhere near finished. The ceiling hadn’t made up its mind about being solid. The light hadn’t decided what color it wanted to be.

And above me, I heard it. God, stretching his legs on the roof again. That slow, satisfying creak of tile under divine weight, not heavy, not loud, just inevitable. Thunder getting dressed in the other room. He never speaks. He just walks the edge of waking, checking to see if the roof still holds. It always does. Barely.

Time drips slow and sweet from the mouths of clocks that only measure dreams. Just the soft syrup of maybe. The breath before rhythm.

A tremble of breath. A flicker of something warmer than thought, cooler than memory. I could feel the dream still laced through my limbs, sticky and suggestive, like I’d laid in honey. Something electric hummed just under my skin, not quite desire, not quite fear. That bright, private gravity of becoming.

There was no story yet. No shape to step into. The body was still trying to remember itself. My thigh pulsed with an echo of running. My lips tingled with words they hadn’t formed. Even my teeth felt uncertain, like they weren’t entirely mine. And yet, the room began to remember its lines. The window cleared its throat. A draft traced my ankle. The walls agreed on a name for themselves.

But I wasn’t in it yet. Not fully.

And I didn’t want to be.

Because this, this in-between, this ache of almost, is the only time of day the world is honest. Before clocks start dictating pace. Before coffee becomes prophecy. Before I have to remember what kind of person I’ve been pretending to be.

Right here, I am still unshaped. Still velvet. Still fire behind closed lips. I am the flicker just before the commandment.

I haven’t said let there be.

Not yet .

But I could.

And if I did?

I think the world would listen.

The curtains would inhale, slow and reverent, like lungs remembering a prayer. Light would spill across the floor in molten ribbons, pooling in places time used to gather. The shadows would lean forward, attentive and curious. Trees outside would lean in too, their branches cupping the glass, eavesdropping through leaves.

Somewhere, a mirror would fog with nature’s breath. A violin string would hum untouched. Rain would hesitate at the edge of clouds, unsure if falling still meant forgetting.

The floor would exhale beneath my feet, as if welcoming what it had been waiting for. Dust, once idle, would lift in a dance, caught in slow orbit around something not yet formed. Walls would soften. Doorframes would stretch, just a little, offering passage to places that hadn't existed a moment before.

I would move like unraveling. Like something inked into a page remembering it was once wind. My skin would ripple with new words, loosening the secrets within my bones. The breath I hadn’t taken yet would taste like citrus and sky.

Above me, God would pause.

Not in silence.

In listening.

Because this is the moment before first sound. The breath before the first word. The hunger before creation.

And if I said it.

Let there be .

I wouldn’t need to raise my voice.

Even the stars would lean in.