Known Beneath the Mask You Wear

The coffee cup is warm in your hand, but your mind is still back there, frozen on the exact second your smile slipped. You wonder if they saw the crack in the mask, the exhaustion behind the eyes.

You are performing okayness while breaking inside, convinced that one moment of honesty has disqualified you. But the light does not require a perfect performance to see you.

It sees the tears you wiped away before you walked in, the great love that lives beneath the act. There is a name written on a white stone that only you and the light know—a name that has nothing to do with the slip, the mask, or the coworker's glance.

You are known far more deeply than you are seen.