You Do Not Have to Be Good

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees
 for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
 love what it loves
– mary oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to please anyone.
You do not have to be right.
You do not have to be quiet.
You do not have to ask permission.
You do not have to be beautiful.
You do not have to accept a lie.
You do not have to be something other than you are.

You do not have to walk on your hands and knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You do not have to apologise for feeling what you feel.
You do not have to earn your right to your own worthiness.
You do not have to punish yourself for the choices you make.
You do not have to endure for the purpose of feeling deserving.
You do not have to make it hard.
You do not have to deprive yourself to appear to care.
You do no have to pay back an imagined debt.

You only

You only have to listen to your heart.
You only have to take that one action that will change everything.
You only have to leave.
You only have to stay.
You only have to wait for the doctors report.
You only have to sit through the night listening to the life support machine.
You only have to stay awake long enough to get home.
You only have to open the letter.
You only have to push once more for your baby to come out.
You only have to turn up.
Only is a simple word full of a universe of thresholds.
Only can be lonely and disolate.
Only can feel higher then you can see.
Only can frighten you.
Only is where you know you need to go.

Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves

Letting into something.
Letting fall and be caught.
Letting be.
The feminine nature of who you are.
The place of being that is soft and kind and gentle.
The body that you own, that you reside in.
The body you critique in shop windows.
To love what you love without asking permission.
To want what you love without thinking you must earn it.
To trust your body wisdom and intuition.
To be unattached to the thoughts of needs and justification.
To allow your desires to flower and take root and never need to be explained.
To love what your body loves.

You do not have to be good. You need only love what you love.