The Squishy Part

There is a part of me that is not sharp or defended.

It doesn’t argue. It doesn’t brace.

It yields.

I call it the squishy part, not because it’s weak, but because it’s alive.

It’s the place that compresses when something presses against it,

and slowly returns to shape when the pressure leaves.

You can feel it when you’re moved by something you didn’t expect.

A look held a second longer than necessary.

A sentence that lands in your chest instead of your mind.

The quiet after being understood.

This part doesn’t live in words.

It lives in sensation,

in warmth spreading,

in a soft ache,

in the subtle pull toward something true.

For a long time, I thought I needed to protect it at all costs.

To armor it.

To keep it hidden behind cleverness, strength, control.

But the squishy part isn’t asking to be protected from life.

It’s asking to be included in it.

It’s the part that lets love feel like love instead of strategy.

The part that knows when something is too much,

and when something is exactly enough.

The part that recognizes safety not by logic,

but by how the body exhales.

When I ignore it, I become brittle.

When I listen to it, I become precise.

This softness has weight.

It has intelligence.

It has boundaries that don’t shout,

they simply stop responding when something isn’t right.

The squishy part inside me is where meaning settles.

Where grief moves slowly instead of festering.

Where desire isn’t frantic, just clear.

It is not always comfortable to live from here.

It requires honesty.

It requires pauses.

It requires trusting what I feel before I can explain it.

But when I do,

when I let this part lead,

my life feels less forced,

my choices feel kinder,

and connection stops feeling like something to chase.

This is the place I return to now.

Not hardened.

Not collapsed.

Just softly intact.

Much love

-Kate xo