The Light Sits With Your Armor

The morning light catches the flinch before you can hide it. Someone reaches out, and your body braces for the push that isn't coming.

You wear the mask of okayness while your muscles remember a violence that ended long ago. The light sees the tension in your shoulders and does not ask you to relax.

It sits with you in the armor you still need to feel safe. You are not broken for flinching.

You are surviving. The touch you fear is not the end of the story.

The hand reaching for you is not the hand that hurt you. Bring forth the flinch.

Name it. Let it be seen without shame.

The light is already inside the tension, waiting for you to stop fighting your own survival.