The Light Beneath Your Mask

The screen glows bright in the morning light, but your face feels like a mask you forgot how to take off. You scroll through old photos, tracing the pixels of a time when you mattered to them, while your thumb hovers over the drafts you almost sent.

You delete them one by one, swallowing the words that would have told the truth about how much you are still hurting. It is exhausting to perform okayness for a world that is already moving too fast.

But notice this: the light does not need your performance to see you. It sees the deleted words.

It sees the grief behind the smile you are wearing right now. You do not have to prove your worth with a perfect timeline or a curated history.

The light was already there in the moments you were forgotten, and it is here now in the moments you are hiding. You are not the mask you show the office.

You are the quiet, unbreakable light beneath it.