The Light Waiting in Your Quiet Collapse

The lock clicks. The deadbolt slides home.

And the moment the world is shut out, the mask you wore all day finally falls. It is a private collapse.

The exhale that sounds like breaking. You stand in the quiet hallway, holding up a ceiling that feels too heavy for one pair of shoulders.

But listen — the darkness gathering outside your window cannot touch the light gathering inside your chest. You do not have to perform okayness here.

You do not have to be strong for these four walls. The Good came into your midst not to inspect your fatigue, but to restore you to your root.

That root is light. It was there before the first performance, and it remains now that the acting is done.

You are not alone in the silence. The light is sitting with you in the dark, waiting for you to stop holding your breath.

The collapse is not the end of you; it is the beginning of rest.