Rest for the Hollow Behind the Mask

The morning light is harsh on the mask you wore to get here. It feels heavy now, this performance of knowing who you are while inside you feel like a hollow shell.

You smile at the right moments, you nod, you play the part of the person who has it together. But behind the eyes, there is only silence and the fear that if anyone saw the empty space, they would walk away.

You are exhausted from holding up a structure that has no foundation. — The light does not ask you to be solid today.

It does not demand that you fill the hollow with noise or pretend the shell is real. There was a woman who touched the edge of a cloak because she had spent twelve years pretending she was fine while she bled out in secret.

She did not explain herself. She did not fix herself first.

She just reached. And the power went out of the light into her before she even spoke.

The same light sees the hollow. It sees the mask.

And it is not afraid of your emptiness. It is waiting to fill it, not with a new performance, but with rest.

You do not have to know who you are to be held by the one who knows you.