The Light Loves Your Rough Edges

The middle of the day is when the mask feels heaviest, and the hand you are holding starts to feel like a threat. You pull away mid-embrace, certain that the moment they feel the roughness of your skin, they will recoil.

You are bracing for a rejection that has not happened, guarding a wound that no one else can see. But the light does not require smoothness to touch you.

It is already in the wood you split and the stone you lift — it is inside the very texture you are trying to hide. There was a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off, covered in the filth of the pig pen, and he did not wait for the boy to clean up.

He ran. Before the apology, before the speech — he ran.

The light is not waiting for you to sand down your edges. It is already reaching for the rough parts, because that is where the grip holds best.