The Light Before The Lie

The water runs cold, but you keep scrubbing. You are trying to wash off the lie they told you, the one that feels like it has soaked into your pores and hardened there.

You look in the mirror and see the mask you are about to put on—the face that says you are fine, the face that will walk into the office and smile. But the skin beneath is raw from the friction of trying to be clean enough to be believed.

The light does not ask you to scrub harder. It does not need you to remove the stain before it can reach you.

It sees the redness, the exhaustion, the quiet war in the bathroom sink. And it knows the truth your accuser tried to bury: the lie never touched who you actually are.

You are not what was said about you. You are the light that was there before the first word was spoken, and it remains untouched by the dirt.