I hear often that the people of the world
have gone soft,
but I don’t think that’s true.
I don’t think too many soft people
is a problem the world could ever have

People are hard in their hearts and in their heads,
hard the way glass is hard
and they think it makes them strong
until they realize
they’ve only made it easier for others to break them.
People are hard like bullets are hard and like knives are hard,
hard like loss is hard and like words are hard,
with hard opinions and hard perspectives,
the way that walls are hard
until someone has gone through the work
of taking them down

It’s rare, that people are soft.
Soft like things must be sometimes
to withstand an impact,
and not break.
Soft the way knowledge is soft,
the way it must be if it is to change shape,
it must be malleable.
Soft the way giving is soft
so that when we give pieces of ourselves to others
we can do so without snapping.
Soft like water is soft,
so it may bend and adapt to fill any space that needs it,
without ever losing itself,
and when it must be a force of nature,
it is that too