The heart is a soft organ. Not in literal texture but in general makeup. Sometimes when I talk to the right person I can feel the soft spots flexing under the weight of my emotion. Everyone I’ve ever loved has flexed my heart. Pushed and pressed on the muscle in one way or another.
In most cultures, softness is a negative trait. Softness can be filed under Weakness, Pity, Easy Prey. I’m not so easily convinced of these connotations. When I think about the parts of me that can be considered “soft” I think of my tears spilling onto my cheeks. My voice wobbling. A stone at the base of my stomach. My limbs shaking. A hurricane of my entire body. My soul bending and stretching in a moment. These soft pieces have never felt particularly soft. They feel jagged and pointed. Sharp and rusty. My soft pieces are violent.
I believe that I’m a soft person. This isn’t to say that I’m not tough or brave, but that is to say that I am human. I’m made of flesh and fear. My body quakes under my own feelings.
At times the human condition seems unbearable. This softness that we inherit from birth can be immobilizing. In our softest moments, we find ourselves wishing we could be harder. That strength was something separate from softness and that we could wield it like a weapon to scare off our ugliest feelings, but we can’t. Strength and softness are the same thing. Our tears build up our resilience. That stone in our bellies hardens our core.
When I feel that warmth creeping up my spine, the break in my chest right before I cry, I take a fraction of a moment to appreciate it. The fact that I can come apart just as simply as I can come together. There is beauty in softness. Beauty in coming apart.
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The Phenomenon of Softness
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You. In Many Parts. 2
My post this week is a continuation of “You. In Many Parts”. I had fun writing this one, though the subject matter seems bleak. This piece is unfinished (as every writer says), but I think it perfectly sums up my feelings towards this “you” and thus, must be published!
2. When you look at me, you don’t really look at me. You look through me.
You don’t look through me like I’m a mirror or a window or a ghost or something helplessly poetic like that, but you look through me like I’m eyeglasses. Like you’re happy that I’m there so you can use me to see things more clearly.
And when I take my clothes off for you there’s surprise in your eyes. It’s like you’re seeing me for the first time, but really you’re not. You’ve seen me a million times before this, in a million different iterations before this, only just now you’re seeing my body.
And is this how it is? Do you really have to see my body to know that I have one? Just like you think you’d have to see my brain to know that I have that too?
I have existed before you for many years. Centuries, it seems, and in many universes. I am a constant for you. Always here and ready to make myself an extension to you. I’m your extra limb in this life. In another life perhaps I’m the chains on your tires. In the next, the spare blanket beneath your bed. And in your favorite life, maybe I’m your mother, loving you without conditions or expectations.
Don’t I exist for you? Don’t I exist in real space? Don’t I prove to you everyday that I deserve you? That I deserve your gaze? Your soul? Don’t I give you my mind every night and my skin every morning? Don’t you beg for it? It feels that way, at least.
Chena Is Home 