I Kept the Bathroom Light On

Dear Delyara, I don’t know why. Maybe because the soft light under the door made the rest of the house feel further away. Maybe because turning it off meant returning fully to evening, and I did not feel equal to that for one more minute. So I stood there doing nothing in a lit bathroom, pretending I was tidying the shelf. It felt ridiculous. It also felt like survival. There are moments now where one extra minute of not being entered by anyone feels like medicine. This was one of them.