soft

yeah, i admit it, i'm soft. that's why i'm so hard.

see, what i mean is, i am quick to want to give the benefit of the doubt. sometimes too eager to look at myself to see if i'm the wrong one, or if i'm contributing to the problem. i'm sensitive. i do care what other people think about me. i don't want to have bad karma. i don't like my feelings hurt. i don't like hurting others. i want to be merciful. i am quick to apologize. slow-witted when it comes to insults.

now i do like the truth. and sometimes that puts me in a complicated position, because i like to tell the truth. sometimes even when people don't ask for it. sometimes that pisses people off. sometimes it hurts their feelings. sometimes it winds up being judgmental, 'cause my truth ain't necessarily THE absolute objective truth.

i'm learning to balance these things as i grow and strive to acquire wisdom and practice love through tolerance and the golden rule.

i also have been learning that my softness can be taken for weakness. i offer a false face sometimes often, kinda like those animals that are capable of changing their shape as a preemptive measure against being attacked. sometimes "the lady doth protest too much" applies to me. maybe that's why that line is something i've always remembered (even though i don't remember exactly where i picked it up. was it hamlet? macbeth?) props if you know. but anyway, my bark is simply worse than my bite, i can still only be me. i always boil down to the only child trying to make friends, the struggling Christian trying to meekly live the Word, the lil' bitty pisces trying to navigate this big behind ocean.

so when i get mad 'cause i think someone else is being too judgmental, my fault. that's just me being soft. and when i talk isht trying to seem less vulnerable than i am, please excuse me. that's just me being soft. when i withhold detail about stuff, maybe even seeming unnecessarily secretive and shady, please understand, that's really just me being soft. would that this were a different world, within which i could be as open as the possibilities of each new day, as warm as the amber of each dawn, as trusting as the hand of a newborn babe -

but some of y'all just as hard as calculus 3.