If every heart-worthy novelist weeps for days before killing off a beloved character, god must have spent centuries sobbing be- fore pressing a pen t… - Andrea Gibson

But when we wake we can’t call up the dead and say,

“Sorry, we were looking the other way.

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 who 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 know 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.

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?