The Light Waits in Your Silence

The afternoon demands a performance of gladness. You rehearse the words 'I am so blessed' until the syllables feel like stones in your mouth, hiding the hollow ache beneath.

It is a quiet desperation to prove you are not ungrateful while your chest feels empty. But the light does not require your acting.

It does not need you to manufacture joy to earn its presence. There is a mercy that runs over, pressed down and shaking together, spilling into the very spaces where you feel nothing.

You do not have to fill the hollowness with noise. The light is already there, waiting in the silence of your exhaustion.

It is not offended by your emptiness; it is the only thing that can fill it. The mask is heavy, but you were never meant to wear it alone.