The Light Sees Behind Your Glass Smile

The house is quiet now, but the echo of that question still hangs in the air. "Why are you sad?" they asked, while you were busy arranging your face into a smile that felt like a mask made of glass.

You wanted to protect them from the weight you carry, so you hid the cracks behind your eyes. But the light sees what the smile tries to cover.

It knows the terror of pretending to be whole when you feel broken. Tonight, in this watch, you do not have to perform for the One who sits beside you.

There is a room where your father sees what is done in secret, and he does not ask you to fix the expression on your face before he comes in. He comes in to sit with the real you, not the painted one.

The light was already inside you before the sadness arrived, and it is still there beneath the fatigue. You are not failing your child by feeling pain; you are human, and the light chose to make its home in this fragile, tired body of yours.

The smile can drop now. The dark does not need your performance.

Just breathe. The light is enough for tonight.