The quiet before the storm, and my dog’s shoulders

It’s 21:00 and the sky’s gone that bruised purple just before thunder — the kind that makes you want to sit still and let the air press against your skin. My dog just leaned into me like he knew I was thinking about how fragile this moment feels. I’ve been doing drag for ten years, but I still get nervous when the lights come up at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday. Not because of the crowd, but because the silence between songs is where the real work lives. Sometimes I wonder if anyone else notices how much weight a single breath can carry.