The Light Inside Your Pretend Laugh

The afternoon hums with a noise that isn't yours, a laugh that rises from your throat and sounds like a stranger performing joy for an audience that isn't watching. You hear the gap between the sound and the feeling, and it terrifies you — the suspicion that you are just a mask wearing a face.

But listen — the light is not hiding behind the performance. It is the wood you split and the stone you lift.

It is there in the very act of pretending, waiting for you to stop pretending and simply be. You do not have to manufacture a sound that feels real.

The truth is already inside you, deeper than the laugh, deeper than the fear. Bring forth what is within you, even if it is silence, even if it is grief.

What you bring forth will save you. The stranger's voice fades when you stop trying to be anyone other than who you are.