The Father Ran Before The Speech

It is three in the morning, and your mind is rehearsing a speech you will never deliver. You are crafting the perfect apology for having the audacity to need someone.

For being heavy. For taking up space.

You practice the words that will make you smaller, quieter, less of a burden. But listen — the light does not ask you to shrink.

It does not want your performance of independence. There is a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off.

He did not wait for the speech. He ran.

Before the apology, before the explanation — he ran. The light is not offended by your hunger.

It is not worn down by your thirst. You are not too much.

You are exactly what the light came to hold. The darkness tries to convince you that your need is a flaw.

But the need is simply the door. Stop rehearsing.

Put the script down. You do not have to earn the right to be held.