The Dusk Between Doses

It don’t hit all at once. No, it seeps in slow, like dusk swallowing the last light of day. Soft at first. Barely noticeable. Then, all at once, I realize the world don’t feel the same as it did an hour ago.

The air gets heavy. My limbs remember they’re made of flesh and bone instead of light and momentum. The silence in the room stops feeling peaceful and starts feeling empty.

This is the space between doses. The place where the medicine fades, but the mind ain’t caught up yet. A slow-motion unraveling. Like a balloon losing helium, still trying to hold its shape, still trying to reach for the sky even as it sinks.

I try to ride it out. Stay still. Breathe through it. But my thoughts get sticky, clinging to me like damp clothes. My joy turns thin. My patience thinner. And that quiet, familiar sorrow the one I thought I outran sits beside me again like an old friend who never learned when to leave.

I remind myself: this ain’t real

Well, it is, but it ain’t

It’s just a shift, just a gap, just the night reminding me that I’m still human, still tethered to something chemical, something fragile. It’ll pass. It always does. Morning will come, the cycle will reset, and I’ll step back into myself like slipping on a fresh coat of paint.

But right now, I wait.

Not fighting. Not fixing. Just breathing through the in-between.