Soft in the Middle

by Shelby Eileen

to those who thought they were made of peach pits, mountain ranges, oak trees, and difficulty only to realize they were made of all those things + ocean waves, feathered wings, 10,000 shades of pink, and softness

feelings disappear like earrings by now my jewellery box is almost empty

everything is always happening; trying and doing and falling and failing life is never still

and if I can’t be loved, I hope I can be let go like petals on the wind

I’m worthy of being a witness to beauty the stars shine for me too

studying sunshine so as to become as lovely as its light

words have been dying just behind my lips,

I feel myself becoming a cave; curving around my centre hardening to protect what sometimes makes me feel hollow

is it just me that feels everyone else’s pain like it’s my own?

I’m just trying to figure out how to remain soft in a world that only knows how to be hard

I was sold the belief that beauty came packaged in thorns

her body is like a mountain range; messy, beautiful, enough to split the sky

she is a world I never want to stop learning

it is ok to find comfort in a girl’s hands

I would trade nothing for knowing the boundless strength feeling the glowing tenderness of a girl’s love

there’s so much to learn from the sky- how to shine like the stars and how to hold happiness like the sun

here I am falling apart and you don’t even know

this is mine this body is a bloom, always shedding petals growing anew

I need to remind myself: I love you you beautiful thing your fragility has never compromised for the sharpness of your edges the possibility of you breaking has never diminished the beauty of all your pieces

every echo of your heart no matter how faint or how thunderous

I’m so glad to have pages with your smile on them

do you build yourself? or do you just fall together?

all the things I keep on the inside run around, frantic there’s broken glass in all my limbs

I’m learning to think of myself as the sun

read the stars in the sky they’ve been telling us who we are since before we were born read the world around you and you’ll find there is nothing you can’t learn

I am beautifully experienced without the help of anyone outside of myself

she didn’t even know me but she made me feel as real as houses as whole as heaven

always rounded out never caving in

I want to celebrate every precious little minute we are lucky to live on a planet of shimmering seas and goddess green in a galaxy layered in starlight in a space so vivid lush and endless

to nothing to a wispy collection of broken threads