Let Your Mouth Go Soft Tonight

The sun has gone down, and now the house is quiet enough to hear the ache in your jaw. You held it all day.

You clenched your teeth to keep the words inside, to keep the peace, to keep from saying the thing that might break everything. But the body keeps the score.

The silence you carried has turned into pain. You are tired of holding your tongue just to survive the room.

Tonight, you do not have to speak. The light does not need your explanation to be present with you.

It saw you swallow the words. It saw the cost of your silence.

And it is not asking you to explain yourself now. There is a rest that comes not from fixing the day, but from finally letting your mouth go soft.

The gathering dark is not a place to rehearse what you should have said. It is a place to lay down the armor you wore for twelve hours.

You are safe here. The words can wait.

The only thing required of you right now is to unclench.