The Light Lives in the Root

The sun has gone down, and now the silence of the room feels heavy enough to touch. You can still feel the phantom itch on your cheek where their eyes felt like physical fingers, trying to peel back your skin to see what you were hiding.

It is a strange violence, to be looked at until you feel raw, until you feel like there is nothing left but the wound. But listen — the light that lives inside you is not a surface thing.

It is not a mask they could have scratched off. It is the very marrow of your being, deeper than any gaze could reach.

You do not have to scrub your face to make it clean again. The light does not live on the skin; it lives in the root.

Let the night gather. Let the itching fade.

You are not what they saw. You are what remains when the looking stops.