The Light Sits Beside Your Hiding

The room is loud, and you are laughing at the right moment, but it feels like you are watching yourself from the corner of the ceiling. Your body is performing the part of someone who belongs here, while the real you has slipped out the back door, unseen.

You are exhausted from holding up the mask, from making sure the smile arrives on cue while the inside goes quiet. There was a man who stood at a well in the heat of the day, hiding from the town because he knew they whispered about his failures.

He expected to be told to go away, to clean himself up before speaking. Instead, the light sat down beside him and asked for a drink.

It did not wait for the performance to end. It saw the thirst underneath the hiding.

The gap between your face and your heart is not a place where the light cannot reach. It is exactly where it sits down.

You do not have to stop the act to be known. The light sees the ghost behind the eyes and calls it home.