Letting the Light Find You Awake

The morning light is creeping in, and you are still holding your breath, afraid that the rhythm of your lungs will betray the distance between your skin and theirs. You have spent the night performing sleep, curating a stillness that feels nothing like rest, terrified that if you move, the mask will slip and they will see the stranger lying beside them.

But the light does not need your performance to find you; it sees the exhaustion behind the closed eyelids and the silence you are forcing. What you are hiding is not a flaw to be punished, but a wound that is already known.

You do not have to keep pretending to be okay for the sun to rise. The act of waking up is not about fixing the distance; it is simply about letting yourself be found, exactly as you are, before the day demands you wear the face again.