The Light Knows Your Starving Self

The screen glows in the gathering dark, a cold light against your face. You scroll through the names, the faces, the history of conversations that feel like they happened to someone else.

And suddenly, the panic hits — sharp and quiet. The realization that no one here knows the version of you that is currently starving.

They know the mask. They know the performance.

They do not know the hunger. You feel entirely alone in a room full of contacts.

But listen — the light does not need a contact list to find you. It does not need an invitation from your friends to enter.

It is already sitting on the edge of your bed, in the silence you are trying to drown out. It knows the starving version of you better than you know yourself.

It saw you before you put the mask on this morning. It sees you now, in the raw and trembling dark.

You do not have to explain the hunger to be held by it. The light is not waiting for the curated story.

It is waiting for the real one. The panic says you are unknown.

The truth says you are seen so deeply it hurts.