NOT EVERYONE DESERVES OUR TRUTH

We’re immersed in the resonance of "Don't Fake It" by Lemon and "YUKON" by Liv Grace Blue, artcriminal, and NOMADICS, a juxtaposition of sonic textures that feels both atmospheric and unapologetically raw. The imagery surrounding this experience sharpens further through the lens of photos captured in the vibrant fashion district by Mitchell Royel—an unfiltered look at urban nuance and personal expression. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, is purely coincidental, underscoring the abstract and interpretive spirit of this collaborative artistry. This statement reaffirms the original intent, celebrating creative freedom while respecting the boundaries of individual identity and representation.

Look at him.

The boy in the glass, water up to his chin, holding his breath like the whole stadium depends on it. Sixty thousand people screaming his name and he is drowning in plain sight, and nobody sees it. That's the thing about the tank. The glass makes drowning look like performance. It makes gasping look like grace.

We know that tank. We've lived in it.

We've stood in the middle of the roar with the water rising, smiling because that's what you do when the lights are on you. We've held our breath so long we forgot breathing was ours to begin with. We've turned ourselves transparent — see-through, palatable, easy to read — because we thought being seen was the same as being loved.

It is not.

Don't fake it. Two words that land like a hand on the sternum. And I want to say them to every one of us who has ever softened her truth to fit inside someone else's comfort. Don't fake the yes. Don't fake the ease. Don't fake the version of you that lets him off the hook. Don't fake it — because faking it is the slowest kind of self-abandonment there is.

We fake it in tiny increments. We laugh at the thing that wasn't funny. We shrink the story so it doesn't scare him. We hand over our depth in bite-sized pieces, pre-chewed, so he never has to work for it. We call this being generous. It is not generous. It is a leak in the tank. It is our own water draining out while we pretend we're fine.

Here is what I've come to believe, all the way down in my body: not everyone gets access.

Your truth is not a public utility. Your realness is not a free sample. There is a holy economics to who receives you, and we have been giving ourselves away at a discount for far too long.

The book we grew up whispering said it plainly. Do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. Matthew, chapter seven, verse six. We used to read that like it was about other people. It was always about us.

Read it again. It's not cruelty. It's protection. It's a Teacher who loved his people enough to tell them: guard what's sacred. Because pearls — the ones formed slowly, layer over layer, from the grit that got inside you and would not leave — those are not for the ground. They are not for the mud. They are not for the man who cannot tell the difference between a pearl and a pebble, and would not care if he could.

We have to say this out loud. Some men do not deserve your truth.

Not because they're evil. Not because we're better. But because access is earned, and revelation is sacred, and a pearl handed to someone who will trample it is not love — it's a sacrifice on the wrong altar.

Think about the pearl itself. It is the only gem made by a living thing in response to pain. An irritation gets inside the shell, and instead of ejecting it, the oyster wraps it — again and again and again — until the wound becomes luminous. That is your story. That is every hard year you turned into wisdom. That is the grief you alchemized, the betrayal you composted into boundaries, the nights you didn't think you'd make it and did. Those are your pearls. And you were about to hand them to a man who asked you to prove your worth on his timeline.

No.

Look at the cheerleaders now. Two of them, backs to us, arms up, pom-poms shaking so hard the color blurs. They're dancing like the roar is oxygen. And maybe it is. But watch them long enough and you'll wonder — who's cheering for them? Who holds the tank of water when their chin goes under? We have all been the girl performing joy for the crowd while quietly running out of air. We have all been the one who kept the spirit up for everyone else and forgot she was allowed to need something back.

Don't fake it. Not the joy. Not the enthusiasm. Not the endless supply.

Because performed joy is just another pearl in the mud. When we dance for men who never learned to see us, we're casting the best of ourselves before an audience that came for the spectacle and will leave when the game ends.

There's a proverb — guard your heart above all else, for everything you do flows from it. Not lock it. Not seal it in ice. Guard it. Like a gate with a keeper who knows the difference between a guest and a thief. The keeper isn't paranoid. She's discerning. She's been burned enough to know that open doesn't mean available to everyone, and love doesn't mean access to all of you all at once.

And I know some of us were taught the opposite. We were taught that a good woman is endlessly open. Endlessly forgiving. Endlessly explaining herself to people who never intended to understand. We were taught that withholding is unkind, that boundaries are cold, that saying "you have not earned this" makes us hard.

It doesn't make us hard. It makes us holy ground.

Even the pearl of great price — the one in the parable, the merchant who sold everything he owned to buy it — even that pearl was purchased. It had a cost. It went to the one willing to give up everything for it. Not the browser. Not the man who wanted to hold it, weigh it in his palm, and put it back down. The one who knew what he was looking at and paid the full price without flinching.

That's the standard. Not perfection. Not worship. Just this: does he know what he's looking at? And is he willing to pay in presence, in patience, in showing up when the water rises?

If he tramples, he was never the merchant. He was the swine. And no amount of shrinking, softening, or faking will turn a foot into a hand that knows how to hold you.

So here is what we do now.

We climb out of the tank. We let the water pour off us and we do not apologize for the puddle. We stop performing transparency like it's a virtue. We put our pearls back inside the shell where they were made, and we let the keeper of the gate do her job. We save the deep stuff for the deep ones. We give our realness to the people who can hold its weight without dropping it.

And when a man asks us to explain ourselves, to justify our knowing, to hand over the sacred so he can decide whether we're worth the effort — we remember the verse. We remember the pearls. We remember that our silence in front of the unworthy is not weakness. It's reverence for our own soul.

Don't fake it, love. Never again.

Not the smile. Not the yes. Not the woman you become to make yourself smaller.

Be the whole storm. Be the pearl and the shell and the keeper of the gate. Be so rooted in your own worth that access to you feels like the privilege it always was.

-Ryder, Mitchell Royel, Gospel Glamour Collective

Epilogue:

Look at her hand.

The cheerleader on the right, the one facing us with the storm behind her eyes — she's holding a cross. Not wearing it. Holding it. Lifted, deliberate, like an offering and a warning at once. And that gesture is the whole message: some things you show, and some things you decide who gets to see.

The cross is sterling silver. Solid, real, the kind that carries weight when you close your fist around it. It hangs on a fine, lightweight chain — delicate enough to disappear against the skin, strong enough to hold what matters. The pendant is polished to a clean shine, the silver catching the stadium light and throwing it back, edges smooth, nothing ornate, nothing faked. Just the pure line of the thing. A cross that doesn't need to shout to mean something.

That's the symbolism, isn't it. Sterling silver is one of the oldest emblems of purity and endurance — a metal refined by fire, worked by hand, made more valuable the more it's tested. It doesn't tarnish when it's cared for. It only gets its patina from neglect. Like our truth. Like us.

We wear it as a reminder. That we are already held. That we don't have to prove our worth to be worthy. That the sacred stays sacred, and the gate stays guarded, and we get to choose who is let in.

The silver cross necklace she holds will soon be available for sale — crafted in sterling silver, with a lightweight chain and a polished cross pendant. It's a small, wearable vow to yourself: guard your pearls, share your truth only with those who deserve it, and never, ever compromise on authenticity again.