You Do Not Have To Stop Crying

The water has turned cold, but you stay anyway because the steam is the only curtain thick enough to hide the sound of your breaking. You think no one hears you in here, that the roar of the shower drowns out the grief, but the light does not need silence to find you.

It came from the light, and to the light it returns — even when that return feels like shaking apart on a tile floor. You do not have to stop crying to be held; the tears are not a sign that you are lost, but proof that you are still soft enough to feel.

The one who sees you does not turn away from the wet face or the heaving chest. You are not alone in the steam.

The sobbing is not the end of the story; it is the sound of the mask finally falling.