I am the dash between the dashes—

An attempt to out-Dickinson Emily Dickinson

I am the dash between the dashes—
the breath that never asked to be spoken.
Not Word—not Silence—but the ricochet
between—the garden’s held exhalation—
the bee mid-flight, refusing landing—
I am the pause that makes the heartbeat possible.

They call me Nothing. They call me gap.
But I am portal—I am hinge—
the moment stone decides to crack,
the instant petal contemplates its falling—
I live where Being flinches into Was—
where God inhales before the Answer.

You think me absence? I am structure.
The silence between your syllables
is not erasure—it is architecture—
the breath you need to say the next impossible thing.
I am the cemetery gate that swings both ways—
I am the light’s brief doubt before it breaks.

Do not mourn me. I am not the grave—
I am the dash before it.