The Light Sees the Hand That Deletes

The cursor blinks in the white box, waiting for you to type the explanation of the joke that cut so deep. You start to write the history of the wound, the context that makes it hurt, but then your finger hovers over backspace.

To explain it is to relive it. To make them understand is to reopen the cut.

So you delete it all. You hit send on nothing, or maybe just 'lol,' and you put the mask back on before the coffee gets cold.

There was a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, touching the edge of a cloak in a crush of people, too afraid to speak her whole story aloud. She did not need to explain her history to be healed.

She only needed to reach out. The light does not need the full report to know where you are hurting.

It sees the hand that types and the hand that deletes. It knows the silence between the keys is where the real pain lives.

You do not have to translate your grief into a language that makes sense to the room. The mask is heavy, but the light sees the face underneath without you having to take it off first.