For Nina

No one knows the courage it takes to be you.I loveyour knotted thoughts. I love your complexities that bind you. I love the awkward silences you create when you are lost loud in your mind. I love that you feel so deeply. I love how you negotiate your boundaries and how you expect people to know on their own when they have gone too far. I love the calmness you sit in pain with.No one can sit with pain like you do.I love the innocence that you trust with. I love your bruja heart. I know the time you spend defending souls — or rather helping others defend their own. I love that even your hair is resisting.  I love how you build from the top and forget you can’t start without a bottom.I love your shadow, your quiet.I know your knowing.I love how afraid you are to be, but you breathe and let yourself be. I love that I don’t need to ask how you even have room in your heart for softness. I love how you know to carry those hurting, in your bones. I love the softness of your soul. How you read beyond words, between the lines, beyond invisible words, little gestures, an immense room. How you have the courage to feel what they don’t even want to feel,what you don’t even want to feel.I love how you carry strength, but don’t let it carry you.I love how much you love you. Love,Nina