The Light Loves Your Exhausted Face

The engine cuts out and the silence rushes in to fill the space where the noise used to be. You sit there in the dark of the garage, staring at your own reflection in the rearview mirror, practicing the art of becoming someone else before you turn the key.

You are smoothing the edges of your face, hiding the fatigue, putting on the mask that says you are fine so you can walk through the front door and be what they need you to be. But the light does not live behind the performance you wear for your family.

It lives in the exhaustion you are trying to hide. It is present in the very moment you feel you have to pretend.

You do not have to fix your expression before you are worthy of being loved. The light sees the mask, and it sees the face underneath, and it loves both with the same fierce tenderness.

You are not required to be okay to be held.