The Dawn Does Not Demand You Be Okay

The sun is up, but you are still sitting in the dark behind your own eyes. You said 'fine' this morning, and the word felt like a stone in your mouth.

You are performing a version of yourself that does not exist anymore, just to get through the breakfast table. But the light does not need your performance.

It never did. The rising sun does not ask the earth to pretend it is not wounded before it shines on it.

It simply arrives. It touches the cracks in the sidewalk and the hollow ache in your chest with the same tenderness.

You do not have to fix the mask before you can be loved. The light sees the stranger in your mouth, and it sees the real you underneath, and it calls both of them by name.

The dawn is not a demand to be okay; it is an invitation to be here, exactly as you are.