Known Before You Answer The Phone

The phone buzzes on the table, and for a second, the room holds its breath. You stare at the name, knowing exactly what is required: a voice that sounds like joy, a performance of okayness that feels heavier than the grief you are carrying.

The gap between how you look and how you feel becomes a canyon so wide it threatens to swallow you whole. But the light does not need your mask to see you.

It sees the trembling hand, the silence behind the eyes, the exhaustion of pretending to be whole. There is a peace that does not depend on your ability to perform it, a rest that waits for you even while you are speaking lies to keep the peace.

You are known in the quiet before you answer, known in the fatigue of the act. The light is not offended by your weariness; it is present in the very space where you feel you are failing.

You do not have to manufacture the joy to be held by the love that holds you.