the cupboard light

“The Cupboard Light”

It was nearly midnight

when he slipped out of bed,

careful not to wake her.

The house exhaled its silence—

walls warm with sleep,

timber creaking

from the day’s last heat.

He padded to the kitchen

in bare feet, opened the cupboard

where li’l miss had hidden

a note for him the day before:

“I love you even when you forget milk.”

He smiled at that.

Switched on the stovetop light—

not bright enough to disturb,

just enough to see his notebook.

He scribbled under

a half-written poem:

“Faith is not thunder. It’s a fridge humming through the night.”

A creak behind him.

Li’l Miss in her tiny dressing gown,

one sock half-off, thumb in her mouth.

“You writing again?” she asked.

He nodded.

She nodded back, solemnly,

like a poet-in-training,

and padded away.

The cupboard light blinked once

and stilled. He returned to his pen.

The house listened.

.