The Light Knows Your Trembling Voice

The phone rings, and you hear the specific texture of their voice when they ask a simple question. In that split second, you are calculating.

You are running the numbers to keep the lie alive, to make sure the mask doesn't slip. It is exhausting work, this arithmetic of hiding.

You perform okayness while breaking inside, and the gap between how you look and how you feel feels like a canyon. But the light does not need your calculation.

It sees behind the mask. It knows the tremor in your voice before you even speak.

There is a truth that lives in you and will be with you forever, a truth that requires no math to sustain. You do not have to hold the performance together for the light to love you.

The mask is heavy, but the face beneath it is already known.