Kindness

When the kindness comes for you let it in
the way you let the sun in through the window or the sand in between your toes

If it feels like it’s aiming right for your heart that’s because it is

And if you’re wondering why it never felt this way before (the kind words from the lady who found your father wandering the streets with his Alzheimers; the gentle touch by the nurse after you birthed your baby)

perhaps it’s because your heart was a checkpoint instead of a landing strip
and now it all arrives to close to home, so intimately, so personally
the way kindness does when it has a clear path to you

taking your hand and showing you the tender side of being human
through illness or loss or love or aging

And when all the vulnerability you thought the world would laugh at is held so gently, so kindly
perhaps you wonder why you’ve spent a lifetime hiding your raw, unedited heart until now

and perhaps you let the love color outside the lines a little more going forward
perhaps you let the kindness soften those callouses from that time you lost or that time you hurt or that time you died a little or a lot

and then send it on its way to land in someone else’s heart.