What It Cost Me to Stay Soft

(a letter for those who kept their heart open even while bleeding)

There were times I could’ve hardened.

Times I should’ve, maybe.

When silence would’ve been safer than speaking.

When closing my heart would’ve stopped the ache from spreading so far inside me

it felt like wildfire wrapped in glass.

But I stayed soft.

I kept showing up with eyes that still watered.

Hands still outstretched.

Voice still trembling, but honest.

Love still unguarded — even when it made me bleed.

And I won’t lie to you —

It cost me.

It cost me being misunderstood.

Laughed at. Ghosted. Left.

It cost me being called “too sensitive”

by people too numbed out to remember what feeling even means.

It cost me nights on the floor,

begging for a kind of kindness that doesn’t have conditions.

But what I’ve learned is this:

There’s a strength in softness that most will never understand.

A warriorhood in weeping.

A kind of holy resilience in still choosing tenderness

when this world keeps rewarding the ones who turn cold.

Staying soft doesn’t mean I don’t get angry.

It means I let that anger burn clean —

without letting it rot my heart.

It means I can look into the eyes of someone who’s hurt me

and still hold the truth without spitting venom.

Still see the little child behind their mask.

Still walk away with my integrity intact.

So yes — I’ve paid a price.

But I’ve kept something too.

I've kept the part of me that feels deeply,

loves fiercely,

and lives without needing to pretend.

That’s not weakness.

That’s legacy.

For the ones who still hold love like a torch in the dark —

This is your reminder:

You are rare.

You are holy.

And your softness is sacred.

🦋A

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