He Ran Before You Spoke

The afternoon stretches long, and you are tired of pretending the hope inside you isn't a lie. You move through the motions, smiling at the right times, while a quiet voice insists you are a fraud for still believing light exists when everything hurts.

But there is a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off — broken, ashamed, empty — and he did not wait for the apology. He ran.

Before the speech, before the promise to do better — he ran. That running is not a reward for your performance.

It is the truth of what is already inside you. The light does not require you to be whole before it lives in you.

It is there in the fraudulence. It is there in the fatigue.

You are not pretending. You are remembering.