Andrea Gibson Quotes

"My "yes" never fit into the "no" of this world."

But how can we forget what we never knew?

I want to break every promise I have made to my pain.

Lately I've been thinking about who I want to love, and how I want to love, and why I want to love the way I want to love, and what I need to learn to love that way, and how I need to become to become the kind of love I want to be. And when I break it all down, when I whittle it into a single breath, it essentially comes out like this: before I die, I want to be somebody’s favorite hiding place, the place they can put everything they need to survive, every secret, every solitude, every nervous prayer, and be absolutely certain I will keep it safe. I will keep it safe.

Picasso said he'd paint with his own wet tongue
on the dusty floor of a jail cell if he had to.

We have to create.
It is the only thing louder than destruction.
It's the only chance the bard are gonna break,
our hands full of color
reaching towards the sky,
a brush stroke in the dark.

It is not too late.
That starry night
is not yet dry.

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

You can stand on the cliff of my heart and shout nothing but ‘ugly’ through me. I promise all I will echo back is ‘Beauty, beauty, you have always been beauty

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?

There are things we know by heart.

And things we don’t.

I stopped calling myself a pacifist when I heard Gandhi told women they should not physically fight off their rapists. I believe there is such a thing as a nonviolent fist.

Just to be clear, I don't want to get out without a broken heart. I intend to leave this life so shattered there better be a thousand separate heavens for all my flying parts.

Let me say right now for the record,
I’m still going to be here
asking this world to dance,
even if it keeps stepping on my holy feet.

You, you stay here with me, okay?
You stay here with me.

Raising your bite against the bitter dark,
your bright longing,
your brilliant fists of loss.
Friend, if the only thing we have to gain in staying is each other,
my god that is plenty
my god that is enough
my god that is so so much for the light to give
each of us at each other’s backs
whispering over and over and over,
“Live. Live. Live.

Rocking Chair

Sad is.
Scared is.
That is all.
The rocking chair I live in rocks like a paper boat. Sometimes I am all words, and no boot.
No muster. No yes. All lag and tired pray,
all miss my hometown. Miss the woods
and the quiet porch and the talking slow.
I caught the snow on my tongue.
Snow angel, I.
My heart a blue lamp.
My mother calling me home.
We cannot be called home enough times in our lives.
Dear lonely,
what is your name?
I will open my front door
and ring it through the streets.

Our hearts beat so loud the neighbours think we’re fucking, when I’m just trying to find the nerve to touch your face.

IT TAKES A HELL OF A LOT MORE MUSCLE
TO STAY
THAN TO GO.