lingering
springtime of the soul
Lately, I've been softening.
Both intentionally and not.
It's almost as though life is softening me...without me having to try or force.
It simply is.
It's as if I'm remembering —
Remembering how to simply be, rather than push myself to always do.
Remembering...
That softness is who I am, who I've always been, at my core.
But they would rather we forget.
We are taught to build a life of hardness
To harden our hearts to build more, more, more.
But hardness eventually cracks.
Mine certainly did.
I held myself through the cracking.
I let myself become a mushy mess.
I did so because I haven't always been able to.
It wasn't always safe to be soft.
It's seen as a weakness to be weeded out
I let myself feel the shame we are taught about it
To alchemize it into tenderness and fall in love with its power.
I linger here,
In a space between an old world and a new one.
The space between an old self and a new one.
My soul breathes reassurance into this body,
Urging me to pause, be still, and feel into the depth of this transformation.
This new self is not fabricated. There's nothing to pretend,
Rather, this new self has stripped away everything I'm not
Naked and free — a powerful unbecoming of the version I felt I had to be
Before this rebirth.
I linger here.
Giving gratitude for the old version.
She's come so far.
The world wanted her to stay inside, to stay silent,
It preferred - needed - that old version.
But I'm not answering to it anymore.
This new life - this new self - I'm embodying is not a mirage.
She's here to stay, no matter how close you get.
So, come, break out of the crysalis.
It's time to fly.
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