You Do Not Have to Break Yourself

It is deep in the watch, and the silence of the house has become a mirror for the noise inside your head. You feel the old, familiar itch to manufacture a crisis, just to see if they will stay.

To create a storm so loud that the only way to prove love is to weather it with you. But the light does not need you to bleed to know you are hurting.

It saw the wound before you ever thought to pick up the knife. There was a father who saw his son while he was still a long way off, still rehearsing his speech, still covered in the mess he made to get attention.

The father did not wait for the performance. He ran.

The light is already running toward you. You do not have to break yourself to be found.

The testing is over. The staying was never conditional on your suffering.

You are loved in the quiet.