You Are Light, Not Stain

The water is hot, but it cannot reach the part of you that feels stained. You are scrubbing until your skin is raw, trying to wash off a feeling that no soap can touch.

The exhaustion of the day has turned into a war against your own body. You think if you just scrub harder, the shame will finally rinse away.

But listen — the light does not wait for you to be clean before it comes close. It stepped into the dirt of this world and called it holy.

It does not recoil from your grime. It does not need you to be spotless to love you.

The feeling of being fundamentally unclean is a lie the darkness tells when the sun goes down. You are not dirty.

You are a drop from the light, sent here to illuminate, not to be washed. The water stops.

The steam clears. And you are still here, still loved, still whole beneath the red marks.

The light is not something you earn by scrubbing; it is what you are when the scrubbing stops.