The Weight Of

“The Weight Of"

I. The Soft Openings

I am the kind of person

who can cry over a panda and a cat sharing a bowl of sunlight,

two creatures that don’t even speak the same language

but still understand the vocabulary of gentleness.

That kind of softness does something to me

It opens a door in my chest

I didn’t even realize I’d locked to survive.

Some days, wonder sneaks up on me

like a child tugging my sleeve saying,

“Look. Look at how beautiful the world can be.”

And I do.

And I break a little.

And I heal a little more.

II. The Weight of the World

But being sensitive

I mean really sensitive

is a job with no clock-out time.

I watch the news,

and the hurt of strangers clings to me

like smoke in my clothes.

Every headline is a prayer or a warning,

and I carry both

because my soul doesn’t know how to travel light.

I feel the tremble behind every mother’s voice,

the shaking in a city after sirens stop,

the quiet of a community

trying to remember how to breathe again.

And I wonder...

is it a gift or a burden,

to carry storms I didn’t make,

thunder that doesn’t belong to me,

and still feel responsible for the rain?

III. Nature Is the Dialogue I Understand

Then I step outside,

and the Earth tries to talk me down.

The sky paints me a softer truth,

a horizon reminding me

that endings and beginnings are always holding hands.

Trees sway like they’re slow-dancing with the wind,

teaching me that bending isn’t breaking.

Rivers hum songs older than grief,

reminding me I am a visitor

in a world that knows how to survive without me

but chooses to embrace me anyway.

Nature doesn’t hide its wounds

or pretend its joy.

It just is.

And somehow that honesty

teaches me how to keep going.

IV. When People Become Ancestors

And then

there is the weight that knocks differently.

When people I love

transition into ancestors,

the world tilts,

and suddenly I feel like I’ve inherited

their unfinished prayers,

their unspoken dreams,

their quiet hopes

that never made it into daylight.

When someone becomes an ancestor,

their absence doesn’t feel like emptiness

it feels like an assignment.

A torch passed quietly into my hands

that I didn’t feel ready to carry.

I feel responsible

for remembering their laughter correctly,

for honoring their lessons even when I’m tired,

for holding up the people who are grieving

while trying not to collapse myself.

Being sensitive means

I don’t just mourn

I hold the mourning.

I hold the room.

I hold the stories.

I hold the trembling in other people’s voices

because I know grief is heavy

and somebody has to help lift it.

And maybe that’s why my chest always feels full—

with love, with ache, with legacy

like every ancestor is whispering,

“Baby, keep going.

You feel deeply because we could not.

You carry what we couldn’t finish.

And that is sacred.”

V. The Beautiful Exhaustion

Being sensitive means

my heart is an open mic...

every emotion steps up,

taps the mic twice,

and performs a piece

before I even get to ask for the set list.

Some days it’s beautiful.

Some days it’s too much.

Most days it is both.

But here’s the truth:

Feeling everything

means I never miss the small miracles.

I catch the quiet kindness.

I notice the almost-forgotten joys.

I celebrate the soft victories

that the world rushes past.

It costs me

oh, it costs me

but it gives me a front-row seat

to the sacredness of being alive.

VI. The Closing Breath

So yes...

I am exhausted.

I am overwhelmed.

I am drenched in the weight

of a world that is both breaking and blooming

at the exact same time.

But I am also grateful

because to be this sensitive

is to live life with the volume all the way up,

to love with no dimmer switch,

to grieve with truth,

to rejoice with both hands open.

It is to carry legacy,

carry softness,

carry storms,

and still choose sunlight

every single day.

It is to be human

deeply, painfully, beautifully human

and I wouldn’t have it

any other way.

A poem by N'gamé 🦋