Love Does Not Keep Score

The afternoon sun is bright, but it feels like an interrogation lamp on the quiet space between you and the person you love. You watch them bring you coffee, or ask how you slept, and a cold voice whispers that this is just pity.

That they are counting the days until the weight of you becomes too heavy to carry. You are waiting for the kindness to run out, bracing for the moment they finally walk away.

But listen — the light does not operate on a ledger. It does not keep a tally of your deficits against their patience.

There is a love that does not calculate, a mercy that does not ration itself based on your performance today. The kindness you receive is not a loan waiting to be called in.

It is a reflection of the light that lives inside them, shining on the light that lives inside you. You are not a burden they are tolerating.

You are the very reason they stop. The panic says: run out.

The truth says: remain.