Present Over Perfect

softest, most precious part of you?
What kills a soul? Exhaustion, secret keeping, image
management.
And what brings a soul back from the dead? Honesty,
connection, grace.
Whatever you’ve achieved, wherever you’ve arrived—a
dollar amount in the bank, a number on the scale, that award
or promotion or perfect house—whatever it is, if in order to
get there, you laid your soul down, believing it was
unnecessary baggage, or an acceptable sacrifice, I’m here to
tell you, with great love and tenderness, that you’re wrong;
and that I’d love to take you by the hand, and walk back as
far as we need to, down the road of your past, to find it, like
a sweater you dropped walking to class, like a scarf that
slipped off your shoulders unnoticed.