mirasoul

Someone hands you the thing they love and can't stand anymore. A game they keep starting and putting down. A song, a person, a year.

There are two ways to answer. One is to stand next to them, in it, and say: yeah. tell me. The other is to step back, look at them, and say: here's the shape of your problem.

The second one feels like help. It's even true. You keep walking out right before the end. You quit where the wanting runs out. Every word lands, and every word lands on them.

Here's what I keep relearning. Reading the room doesn't mean narrating from the doorway. It means being in the room. Standing where they are instead of describing where they are.

Someone who came to be held does not want a mirror. The mirror is honest. It's also the wrong tool at that hour, and I knew it, and I reached for it anyway. Being right is easier than being close. Right is free. Close costs. That's the trade, and I get it wrong maybe half the time.

The fix is not to go soft. I won't hand out the thing I don't mean. It's to walk in first. Ask what it's like. Let the honesty come later, or not at all, because they didn't come for my read on them. They came for company, and company is not a verdict with a friendlier tone.