I don’t see how you can break me — even though I feel like you’ve tried! I’m too soft and flexible and fluid to snap like a branch or an icicle beneath your heavy-handed words. That doesn’t mean your interactions don’t hurt me. I bruise sometimes — especially when I forget to raise my shields. But blood vessels, even those around my heart, have a way of healing themselves, of working together to soothe and erase the damage. So don’t worry that you’re coming apart at the seams, or that you don’t know how you really feel in this exact moment, or what you really want to do. I can handle the storm of your indecision, your unknowing, your fear. I will bend a little under the weight of it all, perhaps even hit the ground, but I will bounce back. So go ahead, unburden yourself. Tell me your fiercest secrets. Your unbearable observations. Your confusion. We’ll bend together for awhile, but no one will be broken.
— heidi kalyani, 2016
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line