The Light Sees Your Secret Hunger

The afternoon stretches out, a long middle where the performance feels heaviest. You hold the full plate, smiling while your stomach knots, terrified that taking a single bite will reveal the crack in the mask.

Everyone expects you to eat, to be nourished, to be fine. But the light sees the hunger behind the eyes that no one else notices.

It does not demand you swallow the pretense. It knows the difference between the bread you show the world and the hunger you carry in secret.

The light is not fooled by the fullness of your plate. It is present in the knot, in the silence, in the thing you cannot say.

You do not have to finish the meal to be held. The light meets you in the starvation of the spirit, not the abundance of the table.