The World You | Are Missing

You miss the silence between the last firework and the crowd’s delayed applause—a pause where the sky is still deciding whether to be dark or full of ghosts. The way grief looks exactly like exhaustion until someone asks, “Are you okay?” and you realize they aren't the same.

You miss the first time a child notices their own shadow and tries to shake hands with it. The smell of a library’s oldest book, opened by someone who last read it in 1972. The conversation two strangers have on a midnight bus, knowing they will never meet again, so they tell the truth. the world you are missing

That world isn't hidden. It's happening now, in the crack of a knuckle, the tilt of a dandelion toward a sliver of sidewalk light, the exact second a held breath decides to become a sigh. You are missing it not because you are busy, but because no one told you that wonder is not a place—it’s a direction. And you’ve been looking the other way. You miss the silence between the last firework