The Light Waits When The Mask Slips

The coffee cup is warm in your hand, but you feel nothing. They ask how you are, and the word 'fine' slides out like a coin you've polished too many times.

It buys you a moment of peace, but it costs you your presence. You are sitting right there, yet you feel like a ghost haunting your own life.

The mask fits so well now that you forget you are wearing it. But the light does not need your performance.

It sees the tremor in your hand that you are trying to hide. It knows the ache behind the smile that you think no one notices.

You do not have to hold the pose for the light to love you. In fact, the light is waiting for the moment the mask slips.

Because that is where the real you lives. Not in the perfect answer, but in the honest silence beneath it.

The father saw him while he was still a long way off, covered in the dust of a life gone wrong, and ran before the speech could begin. You do not need to finish the act.

You only need to stop.