The Strength to be Soft

by Kimberly C. Jones©

I am a woman.
I am a Black woman, and I am built different.

In order to exist, I was taught to be a fortress—
to be the strength that does not crack,
the bravery that does not breathe,
carrying a world that never learned how to carry me back.

My skin became a shield,
my heart a diamond—

brilliant and priceless,
but forged by pressure, tempered in the heat of survival,
too compressed to feel the sting,
too jagged to be touched.
I believed that to be “strong” was to be impenetrable.

Slowly, I am unlearning the weight of the armor.
I am finding a power that does not require a fist.
It is the quiet revolution of a lowered guard—
not because the world grew gentle,
but because I finally became a safe harbor
for the woman living inside my own skin.

I am trading my iron for my own pulse.
I am letting the “strong woman” take her rest
And allowing the soft woman to finally be seen.
Because I’ve realized the greatest truth of all: