Resting Where No Answers Are Needed

The afternoon light is harsh, exposing every crack in the mask you wear for the world. So you lie still in the dark, eyes closed, breathing deep and slow, hoping the silence convinces them you are asleep.

If you are asleep, they cannot ask how you are. If you are asleep, you do not have to answer.

But the light does not need you to perform wakefulness or rest. It sees you in the pretending.

It knows the exhaustion of holding your breath so no one notices you are drowning. There is a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off — before the apology, before the speech — he ran.

The light runs toward you not when you are awake and perfect, but right here, in the dark, in the lie you tell to survive. You do not have to open your eyes to be held.

You do not have to speak to be known. The pretense is heavy, but the love is heavier — it presses down on the bed until the mask falls away on its own.

You are not hiding from the light; you are resting in the only place that does not demand an answer.