You Do Not Have to Scorch Yourself

The water is too hot, but you stand there anyway, letting it scald the skin just to feel something real beneath the performance you wore all day yesterday. You are trying to burn through the numbness, searching for a pulse in the steam.

But the light does not need you to hurt to know you are here. It saw you close the bathroom door.

It heard the water start. And it is not waiting for you to be clean before it speaks.

Go home to your own people, the voice says, and tell them how much the light has done for you. You do not have to scorch yourself to prove you are alive.

The feeling you are chasing with the heat is already inside you, quiet and steady, waiting for the water to stop. The mask can wait; the light is already here.