The Light Sees You Without The Mask

The house is quiet now, and the mask you wore all day feels like it has fused to your skin. You are terrified that if you stop smiling, even for a second, the ruin underneath will finally be seen.

But the light does not need your performance to know what is there. It saw you before the smile began, and it stayed when the laughter ended.

There was a woman who bled for twelve years, touching only the edge of a cloak because she was too afraid to speak, yet the light stopped the entire crowd to call her daughter. You do not have to hold the ceiling up by yourself tonight.

The light is not afraid of your collapse; it is waiting in the dark to hold what you can no longer carry. The mask was never the condition for being loved.