There’s a second,
just one,
when the lights go down
and the theatre tenses.
The chatter folds,
the velvet breathes,
and I sit in the dark
not as a person,
but as a pause.

Alone,
not lonely;
just suspended,
like a held note
before the overture dares to begin.

In that second,
I am every audience
that ever waited
to be moved.

Then the music starts,
and the world
remembers how to speak again.