POETRY STARTERS.
excerpts from andrea gibson’s ‘ take me with you. ‘
ON LOVE.
i intend to leave this life so shattered there better be a thousand separate heavens for all my flying parts.
maybe i need you the way that big moon needs that open sea.
has your heart ever been a hoarder? mine has, but mostly i don’t keep anything but my word.
do you know the night you told me you have a crush on my ears i swore to never become van gogh? and look, they’re both still here.
she makes me feel like i could win the lottery with a parking ticket.
before i met you my joy had such an early curfew it didn’t bother going out.
i know your life has been hard enough already.
we wear our traumas the way the guillotine wears gravity.
it takes a hell of a lot more muscle to stay than to go.
i wish i was the face you show to strangers when they ask you where you come from.
as for my heart, i’ll say: a music box is still a music box even when it’s closed.
i know it is not sexy to make out with someone who constantly has their foot in their mouth.
autumn is the hardest season. the leaves are falling like they’re falling in love with the ground.
i know some people build their safety with walls. me, i’m into demolition.
ON THE WORLD.
we have to create. it’s the only thing louder than destruction.
i believe there is such a thing as a nonviolent fist.
the high road gets backed up, and sometimes we need to take a detour straight through the belly of uncensored rage.
what i question is the idea of heaven having gates -- silly.
safety isn’t always safe. you can find one on every gun.
i am aiming to do better.
i want peace when i’m dead.
i’m not the box the gift came in.
what if the weather keeps changing and we don’t?
we were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways, but you still have to call it a birthday.
there is no weapon more dangerous than a wound.
it’s cold where i come from. i learned to drown young.
nothing hurts more than living someone else’s life.
it’s a myth that kids are cruel, because we don’t grow out of it.
i just showed up at her house promising to paint my fingernails red with what would gush from her busted face if she ever said it again.
i am so grateful for having a mind that can be changed.
ON BECOMING.
a doctor once told me i feel too much.
beating yourself up is never a fair fight.
every good heart has lost its roof.
bitterness is hell.
you are not weak just because your heart feels so heavy.
ever feel like the best of you is something you’re still hoping to grow into?
i hope to always forgive faster than i write.
we all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe.
i suppose i love this life in spite of my clenched fist.
i want to break every promise i have made to my pain.
i don’t consider myself a cold person, but there’s that windchill factor.
the worst thing that ever happened to me was not the worst thing that ever happened to me. hating myself for it was.
every answer is a grave.
everybody’s dark side is daytime somewhere.
brave is a hand-me-down suit from terrified as hell.
i couldn’t take a compliment without feeling like a thief.
i’m going to kill my own god to fall in love for the first time.
everybody’s survival looks a little bit like death sometimes.
