Known Even With Wet Cheeks

The afternoon hums with the noise of everyone else's living, while you stand behind a locked door, waiting for the faucet to drown out the sound of your own breaking. You turn the water on full blast, a desperate cover for the one thing you have been holding back since morning.

But the light does not need the noise to stop in order to hear you. It was already there, in the steam and the silence between the sobs.

There is a place inside you that came from the light, a drop sent down to illuminate the very darkness you are trying to hide. You do not need to wash your face before you come out.

The one who sees you in the bathroom does not see a mess to be cleaned up, but a child to be held. Go back into the day not because the crying is finished, but because you are known even with wet cheeks.