there was once a woman who knew how to survive.

it wasn’t really what she had hoped to be good at it with her life, but she was given heavy things to carry and so she grew strong, and stronger, and strongest, in the forest-hearted places others seldom looked.

she wasn’t beautiful.

she was courage.

the kind that learns how to sync its breath with the needs of others.

listen, what you need to hear running through these words on hungry cat-feet, is that there once was a woman who taught herself how to keep going; sang tiny love songs to the bones in her inner ear, just so she would not forget how to balance on one foot, or two, or none, and she was not beautiful.

and it did not matter.

because she was courage.