Most mornings, the sun rises in grayscale, weighted between two gravities. I fasten the mask again— it’s thin, too thin— hoping it veils what flickers beneath. I’m tired of being praised for holding it together— as though silence is sainthood, as though endurance is free. I wonder, if the colors I see are the same as yours. Is my red the burn of a star too near, my blue a trench that swallows light? Are both tethered by forces I can’t unlearn, by concepts I have no words for? You see a calm ocean; I see depths that devour the day. You feel warmth; I feel fevered stars pulling me close until my marrow softens. I live in an orbit that never finds its stillness— like the mask, tasting of salt, sweat dripping down my jaw. Some days I wonder: does the mask remember my face? Does my skin only know its weight without it?

Between that which demands I shine and the gravity that pulls me inward, I keep searching for a corridor where silence softens, where wings might hold— or at least fracture gently without burning, without breaking. I smile; gravity has chosen its pull, though each curve is a dialect I’ll never master. You can’t hear the fracture, the pull between quiet and shape. With colors I no longer trust, I brace for darkness behind a brittle smile. The hues are gone. Still, the sun will rise in grayscale. I cinch the mask tighter— it’s easier to let gravity speak than ask it to teach you its language of shadows.