if i could, i would travel all the way back and give you this word, perhaps even whisper it into the wet shell of your unfurling ear, your body still shaping itself from thin-walled cells, you have always been a miracle, there in the earthy waters of your mother’s womb, i would slip this word under a corner of the placenta, willing it to cross over, willing it with my small faith, willing it to nourish both the mother and the seedling child, to settle next to the endless fields of fear, the unknown that waits, to say:
you will have a life, others will have their lives, because of this you will learn how to hold your body, your presence, your entire being rigid, you will seek to marry control, thinking it a weapon with which to protect your pulsing heart, you will learn this to be an untruth, instead this word is a key, and this is what you must learn to do—lean in to the warm flanks of it, the unknown, the fear, you must yield to it, soften, so that you might learn to eat each moment with a small spoon, already your eyes are tired, already you have begun to sing a lullaby to your own life, soften, soften, soften, you are nobody’s war, you are your own peace, be a softening to yourself.

{📷 late night stitching of gentle reminders}

soften.
perhaps it speaks to you too.

liezel