You Do Not Have to Be Fine

The coffee is warm in your hand, but your chest is cold with the rehearsal. You are practicing the casual lie you will tell when someone asks how you are.

'I'm fine,' you will say. 'Just tired.' You will smile the smile that costs nothing and gives nothing.

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

It sees the tremor in your hand before you lift the cup. It knows the weight you are carrying behind the 'fine.' There was a man who sat by a well, exhausted, and the light asked him for water—not because it needed a drink, but because it needed him to stop hiding.

It saw the five husbands, the shame, the noon-hour secrecy, and it did not turn away. It offered him living water.

The light is not fooled by your okay-ness. It is waiting for the moment you put the mask down.

You do not have to be fine to be held. You only have to be real.