1. You are always going to be the first thing I think about when I wake up.
2. In autumn, in the Midwest, you can see Orion gleam like a slew of gemstones.
3. Patience is learned best through pain.
4. In this country, I am still not safe in my skin.
5. Virginia is colder than one would expect, even in the summer.
6. Just because you don’t talk to someone every single day for every single minute, doesn’t mean that you mean any less to them and vice versa.
7. Home can be both a what and a whom all at once.
8. The spirit grows when love takes roots in the veins.
9. I will always miss a person over a place.
10. This body is constantly fighting.
11. Death has spent far too much time knocking on my door to be called ‘stranger’ anymore.
12. God is out there, and they are whispering in every melody that touches the ears.
13. Being a beer snob doesn’t make you cool, it makes you an asshole.
14. Grace looks like a girl on a yellow couch staring straight at her laptop screen, Irish storms clouding her eyes, rain escaping down her cheeks, mouthing to me ‘it’s alright. I’m fine.’
15. This is my body, and my life is the loudest weapon.
16. There must be more poetry, there must.
17. If you spend every single day in contact with another human being, even the blink of an eye feels like the longest silence.
18. I am so happily, and hopelessly in love with you. And I accept the consequence of both.
19. There are people who will haunt your mind long after they have forgotten you. You are allowed to talk to their ghosts once in a while.
20. Nobody really knows what the hell they’re doing. We’re all winging it. Sometimes you have to give a person a break.
21. Prayer is love in verb-form.
22. There’s still something about your eyes that none of my words will ever get right.
23. My mother is what made me what I am.
24. Hands might be the most important part of the body.
25. Love, love, love. In the end, that is the only thing that will save us.
26. We come back stronger, louder, fiercer.
27. You don’t have to love the exact place you are at, but you should love where you think you’re going.
28. Shitty wine is better than no wine.
29. We are not good at listening.
30. Just because your mental illness comes back doesn’t mean you aren’t making progress. Keep fighting.
31. Grace sounds like her voice on the phone saying ‘happy new years.’ We survived it. Thank you for getting me here.
32. The physical word: books & letters, are a sacred part of our world now.
33. Every language on this planet has a way to say 'i miss you,’ and learning all of them still wouldn’t be enough.
34. I belong right where I am.
35. You are always going to be the last thing I think about when I go to sleep.
2016 was a year about love, in all forms, taking root against the odds of all the darkness that was spat at us.
Here’s to 2017 and the hope that our love grows.
jbbartram-illu
origamiaround
ellievsbear
romaincrisis
areudirty
kianamaiart
