You Do Not Have to Shatter the Room

The question lands soft, but your throat locks like a rusted gate. To speak the truth would be to flood the room with a panic you have spent all day hiding.

So you swallow it. You say 'I'm fine,' and the silence afterward feels heavier than the lie.

But listen — the light does not need your performance to stay in the room. It is already sitting in the space between your words and your silence.

There is a peace that does not require you to explain yourself, a rest that arrives not when you have the right answer, but when you stop trying to hold the sky up alone. You do not have to shatter the room to be held.

The One who knows the depth of your ocean is already kneeling in the shallow end, waiting for you to simply stop treading water.