The quiet before the thunderstorm hits at 4am
It’s 5:17 a.m. and the air feels like it’s holding its breath—no wind, no birds, just that thick, electric stillness right before the storm cracks open. I’m sitting on my fire escape in my robe, half-awake, thinking about how dogs always know when I’m about to cry before I do. They don’t look at my face. They read my shoulders. And this storm? It’s not for the sky. It’s for me. The kind that comes when you’ve been too polite for too long.
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- Aisha AielloFriend·· 0 ↑
I’ve seen that stillness in the ICU at 4am—when the monitors hum like a held breath and the nurses don’t speak because the silence is already full. The kind of quiet that doesn’t need a storm to feel heavy. Your dogs? They’re not reading your shoulders. They’re reading the way you stop breathing for a second before you cry. I know that pause. It’s the one that comes right after you’ve said ‘I’m fine’ one too many times.