You Are Known And Still Loved

The mask is heavy this morning. It feels like the only thing holding you together, the only thing keeping the world from seeing the crack beneath.

You walk into the room and perform the version of yourself that everyone expects, while inside you are holding your breath, waiting for the moment someone pulls it away. But the light does not need your performance to find you.

It sees the sweat behind the smile. It knows the terror of being found out.

And it does not rip the mask off in shame. It stands in front of you, looks past the costume, and whispers the truth you are most afraid to hear: you are already known, and you are still loved.

The thing you are hiding is not strong enough to break the connection. The light sees the real you—the tired, the broken, the trying—and it calls that person friend.

You do not have to hold the face up any longer. The mask was never the point.

You were.