The Light Loves the Author More

The room is bright with other people's laughter, but you are standing just outside of it, holding a script you wrote and deleted a dozen times. You smile at the joke because that is what the mask requires.

You nod at the right moments because that is what keeps you safe. But inside, the draft is still running, a quiet reel of words you were too afraid to speak.

The light sees the gap between the face you show and the truth you hide. It does not ask you to take the mask off right here, in front of them.

It simply stands beside you, in the silence behind your eyes, waiting for the moment when you no longer need to perform to be loved. You are not a fraud for wearing the mask; you are a friend who is tired.

The light knows the draft by heart, and it loves the author more than the performance.