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We were not built wrong for feeling this much.
We are not snowflakes.
Some hearts arrive without armor—
open-palmed by design,
connectively aching when others ache.
Empathy was never the flaw,
the cost is constant heartbreak—
from loving in a world
that forgets how to be gentle.
This tenderness is not a mistake—
it’s a whisper for the soul
when the wounds of the world are weighty.
It is hard to love a world
where the powerful take what trends
whilst pretending to care.
Where the loud are rewarded,
and the soft are told
There are days the imbalance feels unbearable—
as if goodness is always paying the price
for someone else’s hunger.
As if caring too much
makes care a liability,
and most become prey to the hunters—
even making gods of them,
lying awake, praying not to be next.
This tenderness is not a mistake.
And still, there comes a moment—
not a triumph,
not a rescue—
just a quiet decision
made in the ache
not to become what wounded us,
or be consumed by the cold.
Not to let resistance harden into derision.
Hope is not denial of the damage,
instead, hope reframes to rename it.
A refusal to allow hurt to be the finished story…
Hope is not denial.
It is defiance—
a whisper for the soul
when the wounds of the world are weighty.
When the sharp edges of the world
spear and spur an inward turn—
a forced regrouping, sullen seethe.
Recovering in safe space, we retreat
because we deserve ourselves.
Somewhere beneath the exhaustion,
beneath the heartbreak and the grief,
a small ember still breathes.
Faint.
Flickering.
Alive.
We cup our hands around it.
Shield it from the wind.
Feed it with honest truth,
with rest,
with beauty found in unlikely places.
Tend the spark.
Hope does not ask us
to save the world.
Only to stay warm enough
to remain human.
Only to let the light inside us
grow just large enough
to guide our own next step,
to soften the edges of the dark,
to keep the cold from settling too deep.
This tenderness is not a mistake—
this is our whisper for the soul
when the wounds of the world are weighty.
Enough to keep the cold away
until tomorrow, for one more day.
A small spark,
still burning.
For tender hearts.
For one more day.
~
author: Chantia Carter
Image: Rosa Rafael/Unsplash
Editor: Nicole Cameron
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