The Light Sees Behind Your Mask

The clock says three in the afternoon, and the performance is holding. You smiled at the right moments, answered the emails, and carried the tray of coffee without your hands shaking.

You looked so okay that someone finally leaned in and asked the question you feared most: 'Are you okay?' And you heard yourself say 'I'm fine' before you even knew you were lying. The lie was not for you.

It was for them. To keep their world from tilting.

To keep the middle of the day moving. But inside, the silence is deafening.

The gap between the face you show and the truth you carry feels like a canyon. — The light sees behind the mask.

It does not need you to drop the act right here in the breakroom. It is not shocked by the performance.

It is resting in the quiet space between your words and your heart. There is a peace that does not depend on your honesty with everyone else, only your presence with it.

You are not alone in the pretending. The light is sitting right there in the chair beside you, holding the part of you that is too tired to speak.