Andrea Gibson Quotes

Sometimes I imagine Hitler at seven years old,

a paint brush in his hand at school

thinking, “What color should I paint my soul?

Maybe sometimes you get tired of seeing people’s humanity in moments where they’re outright refusing to show us their humanity.

I’M NEVER GONNA WAIT THAT EXTRA TWENTY MINUTES TO
TEXT YOU BACK AND I’M NEVER GONNA PLAY HARD TO GET.
I KNOW YOUR LIFE HAS BEEN HARD ENOUGH ALREADY.

There are few weapons more dangerous than our wounds, and, being wounded, there are things we all do that we would often rather die than face. But no one heals what they refuse to look at. So when asked if I think you’re a good person, I say, I don’t believe in good people. I believe in people who are committed to knowing their own wounds intimately.

That I commit to a life of opening and learning, that I commit to learning at a speed that is vigilant and awake, that I commit to knowing where my empathies lean and why they lean there, that I become increasingly familiar with the why of what raises my voice, that I become increasingly familiar with the why of what lulls me to silence, that I be haunted by the ghosts of who my silences have harmed, that I acknowledge that haunting is love, that I trust love lives in whatever points at the dark, that I acknowledge that shame would likely be my laziest gesture, that I stop denying I am a whole person, and my wholeness is often unlovable, and my wholeness is often lovable, that I own the possibility that there isn't a thing one could say about the person I am that I could wholeheartedly deny; All of it-yes, all of the ugly - yes, all of the beauty-, yes, I have failed and will continue to fail,

I have loved and will continue to love, I am committed to leaning and opening, I want people around me who are committed to learning and opening, people who are failing and loving, people who are stalking their own vigilance, the speed of their own compassion saying, 'FASTER FASTER FASTER.

The worst thing that ever happened to me was not the worst thing that ever happened to me. Hating myself for it was.

but I’ve found it’s always worth trying to find a way

to walk away from the land mines

and hope you come back

with your skin intact enough to drink the moonshine

My mother used to knit my mittens too big so they’d still fit me when I grew. I wore them and looked like who I wasn’t yet. I feel that sometimes when I’m writing poems — like they don’t yet fit. Do you ever feel like the best of you is something you’re still hoping to grow into?

A doctor once told me I feel too much. I said, “So does God. That’s why you can see the Grand Canyon from the moon.

Plan was, if they couldn’t catch the fish

then they were gonna drain the sea.

Love, you will never lose me to the wind. You are the lightning that made me fill my chest with candles. You are the thunder clapping for the poem nobody else wants to hear. You are an icicle’s tear watering a tulip on the first day of spring. You melt me alive. You kiss me deep as my roots will reach, and I want nothing more than

Don’t think so much, you’re gonna suffocate your feelings

My mother used to knit my mittens
too big so they'd still fit me when
I grew. I wore them and I'd look
like what I wasn't yet. I feel that
sometimes when I'm writing my poems.
They don't yet fit. Ever feel like
the best of you is something you're
still hoping to grow into?

I grew up in the town that received the first distress signal

saying the Titanic was going down.

It was the only thing we were ever renowned for.

In fact, we prided ourselves on our failure to save the sinking

Only I know how broke I got
buying into the theory that my
life was something
that happened to me
and that's not to say I gave
every hurt a permission slip.
I didn't. But I did cast myself in
a lot of crappy roles. I've been
told almost every argument is a
race for the victim position. I'm
tired of winning the gold.