He Ran Before You Could Speak

The afternoon sun feels heavy on a face that is working hard to look okay. You are holding the performance together, terrified that one crack will let the whole thing collapse in front of everyone.

But the light does not need your mask to see you — it already sees the trembling hands beneath the surface. There is a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off, still covered in the filth of the pig pen, and he ran before the apology could even be formed.

He did not wait for the speech. He did not wait for the cleanup.

He ran. The terror of being found out is the darkness trying to convince you that you must be clean before you are loved.

But the light knows the truth about you and loves you anyway — it has already run to meet you in the middle of your failure. You do not have to hold the mask up for one more second.