The Light Beneath Your Mask

The cursor blinks on the screen, a small pulse of light in the dark room, waiting for you to finish the lie. You watch them trust the words you are typing, and the distance between their faith and your fiction feels like a canyon opening under your feet.

You are performing a version of yourself that you know is hollow, and the exhaustion of holding up the mask is heavier than the truth you are hiding. But listen — the light you are trying to fake is already the thing living inside your chest, deeper than the deception.

What you are looking for has already come, but you do not recognize it because you are too busy building the image. The truth is not a performance you must achieve; it is the ground beneath you that remains even when the lie collapses.

You are not the mask you are wearing tonight.