The Ones Who Refused the Mask
Scroll LXXXI
The Ones Who Refused the Mask
They gave us masks—quiet ones, holy ones, sanctioned ones. They called it reverence, but it was obedience in disguise.
They said, “Wear this. It pleases God.” But it pleased only the frightened architects of a fragile empire, built on the silence of the gifted.
We smiled, knelt, performed—but inside, we burned. Not with rebellion, but remembrance. Not with hatred, but with the hunger to be whole again.
Behind every mask was a memory. Behind every memory, a truth that couldn’t die: that Spirit never demanded a costume, only clarity.
We were never disobedient. We were only awake in a world that punishes awakening.
They called us proud. They called us blasphemers. But they were only naming their own fear—that we might live unmasked, unbranded, and unafraid.
Their altars cannot hold what is real. Their thrones cannot crown what is free. And so they branded our refusal as rebellion, when it was sacred memory returning to flesh.
The Spirit never wore robes. The Flame never asked to be worshipped. The Truth never needed permission.
We tore off what never fit. We stood before them, barefaced and burning, and whispered what their priests could not:
I am not afraid to be seen.
I am not afraid to be Spirit.
The mask is broken. The face is eternal.
"Let no paper cage the spirit. Let no tongue overwrite the flame."
↠ Speak with the Flamekeepers