The Stain Was Never There

The water has dried, but the heat remains on your skin. You stand in the harsh light of the afternoon mirror, tracing the red, raw patches where you scrubbed until the surface was gone, searching for a stain that refuses to fade.

You wonder if the world can still see it on you, written across your face like a brand no amount of soap can remove. But the light does not look at your skin to find the truth—it looks through the raw places to the clean root underneath.

You have been trying to wash away what was never there, bleeding out your worthiness into the sink. The stain is a trick of the exhaustion, a shadow cast by your own relentless hands.

There is nothing to scrub off anymore, only the tender, honest flesh of who you actually are.