The Light Lives in Your Release

The water is loud enough to hide the shaking, but you hold your breath anyway, terrified that the sound of your breaking might reach the next room. You think you must silence the grief to keep the peace, as if your pain is a disturbance to be managed.

But the light does not need you to be quiet. It does not ask you to swallow the tears before you are worthy of being seen.

There is a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off — broken, ashamed, rehearsing an apology — and he did not wait for the speech to finish. He ran.

Before the confession, before the cleanup, he ran. You do not have to stop crying to be held.

The dawn is not waiting for you to be composed; it is rising on you exactly as you are, wet and trembling and real. The silence you are trying to keep is not where the light lives; the light lives in the sound of your release.