Known Behind the Mask You Wear

The house is moving now. The coffee is brewing, the shoes are by the door, and the world expects you to be ready.

But you are standing still in the hallway, holding a toy you spent all night fixing. You glued the broken wing.

You painted over the scratch. You made it look whole again.

Yet you know, with a quiet and devastating clarity, that no amount of repair will ever make them look at you and say the word you are starving to hear. So you put on the mask.

You smooth your hair. You practice the smile that says 'I am fine' and 'We are fine' and 'Nothing is broken here.' You walk into the kitchen performing okayness while your heart is still kneeling in the hallway.

But the light sees behind the mask. It sees the glue on your fingers and the silence in your chest.

It knows that you are not defined by the title they cannot give you. The light does not need a name to know who you are.

It sees the parent who stays. The one who fixes the wing even when the flight is uncertain.

You are known, not by the word they speak, but by the love you carry.