the terror that if people really knew your secret, they would look at you with disgust

The sun is rising, and with it comes the old fear: if they knew the truth about you, they would turn away in disgust. You carry this secret like a stone in your throat, certain that exposure means rejection.

But listen—the light of this new morning does not scan your history before it touches your face. It rises on the evil and the good without hesitation, without condition.

There is a name the light calls you that no one else knows, a secret identity written on a white stone that cancels every shame you are hiding. You are not waiting to be tolerated; you are already known entirely, and still loved completely.

The dawn does not ask you to clean yourself up before it arrives; it arrives to show you that you were never unlovable to begin with.