You Are the Silence Underneath

The water has turned cold, but you are still standing there, letting it hit your skin because you are afraid that if you wash off the performance, nothing will be left underneath. The day asks so much of you — a smile that doesn't reach your eyes, a voice that sounds like someone else, a mask that feels heavier than your own face.

And now, in the steam, you wonder if scrubbing away the act means erasing the only proof you existed at all. But the light does not need your costume to find you.

It sees the exhaustion behind the eyes you painted for the world. It knows the person who is too tired to hold the pose any longer.

— You are not the performance. You are the silence underneath it.

The water can run cold, and the mask can fall, and you will still be there. Wash it off.

The real you is the part that remains when the acting stops.