You Are Not a Problem to Manage

The morning light hits the mask you're wearing, and for a moment, it looks perfect. You are calculating the weight of your need against the risk of being a burden.

You tell yourself it is safer to carry the heavy thing alone, to smile through the strain, to pretend the armor isn't crushing your ribs. But there is a voice that cuts through the performance — a voice that says: I am willing.

Not reluctantly. Not because you earned the right to ask.

Willing. The light does not see your request as an intrusion.

It sees your silence as the danger. You are not a problem to be managed.

You are a person to be held. The calculation is wrong because the love is bigger than your fear of imposing.

Put the heavy thing down. The hands reaching for you are not tired.