Love Looks Pretty on You

Don't stay where you are needed. Go where you are loved.

I have been quiet lately, I know. Not because I don’t have anything to say, but because I have too much.

Love looks pretty on you. Makes you soft, tender, proud. Makes you sit up and take notice. Gives you a home to set down your things. What a blessing it is, to have music and dancing and poetry. What a gift it is, to look at someone and say, I’m so happy to have found you—at last, at last, at long, long last—you’re here.

You turn him into poetry because you can’t have him any other way.

The most beautiful thing is not when you learn to live without something; it’s the moment you realize you never needed it in the first place.

I believe in forgiveness, in wishing well those who have hurt me. But I’m going to make you an exception. Because the truth is, I hope to God you suffer every heartache you put me through. I hope when the darkness comes for you, it will hit you twice as hard as it hit me. And I hope you will curse my name, knowing I was the one who sent it.

How many people have we known all our lives, and never once loved. How many people have we loved, and never known.

Loyalty The only ones they can turn against you are those who were never with you.

Anxiety I struggle with things that are as easy to others as breathing. Like breathing. Like answering the phone. Or sending that email I have been meaning to for weeks. I panic when I am asked out to dinner, even if it’s with someone I really want to see. It’s hard for me to commit to anything, and when I do, I overthink it until my brain tells me I have made a mistake, like a rat caught in a maze, trying to claw its way out. I don’t know why I am like this. People ask me why I can’t do anything without jumping through a thousand thoughts, like hoops. But sometimes I wonder if my inability to function in the real world is really such a bad thing. I wonder if that’s why I’ve spent so much time sheltered in my imagination. And because I can’t live in the real world, I create worlds to belong to. And I wonder if the very thing I’ve always been told is my weakness, has all along, been my strength.

I have buried myself so deep in my words that sometimes I can’t tell if I am the person writing or the one hiding between the lines

Idols You put her on a pedestal. Love her, adore her, crown her as your queen. Then you watch and wait, for a slip, a split second when her guard is down. You would tear her into pieces just to claim a fragment of her story. No one can be perfect all the time. Why do you expect her to be any different? Why is she held to an impossible standard? Why do you take it so personally when she contradicts the version of herself that exists only in your head? You think you know her, that she owes you somehow. That her existence is only relative to yours. But she is her own person. She lives and breathes, she hopes and dreams. She has a life, a love, a family, a purpose. And she doesn’t owe anyone a damn thing.

How do I thank my mother for giving me the life she desperately wanted for herself?

Let her be herself. Or she will be somebody else’s.

Every time I see my name, I hear it in your voice

The Friendship Bond There is that one friend whom you no longer speak to, who is no longer part of your life. If you saw them across the street, you would turn your head away and they would do the same. But if they ever called you in the middle of the night, you would be there for them, sure as the sun. And you know that if you were the one to make that call, no matter how much time has passed or how distant you’ve become, they would be there for you.

And if you've forgotten, let me remind you. How love never really ends. How your heart breaks the same way it beats, again and again, and again.

I don’t think it’s right, telling someone to stop needing somebody else. Have you ever felt the twist of loneliness in the pit of your stomach? Sat in silence with nothing to look forward to? The last thing you should do is tell someone they can fix it on their own. That no one else can fix it for them. Believe me, sometimes all it takes is someone else

Things are coming you can’t even imagine. If you knew what they were, you would forgive this one injustice, this one catastrophe that has brought your life to a screeching, screaming halt. The world will turn for you again, and when it does, it will take you anywhere you want.

More or Less When love is seen from two points of view, what we were I can only guess. I am certain it was love with you— but to love, you did not confess. So was it I— Who made it more? Or was it you— Who made it less?

In the wrong hands, your past is a weapon

In the wrong hands, your past is a weapon.

Now that you have it all, do you ever wish you could go back to when you had it simple?

The less you speak, the more weight your words will carry when you do.

Youth You’re young and there’s still so much ahead. So much uncertainty and doubt. It keeps you up at night—this wild, restless feeling. But you don’t know how free you are. For this short, miraculous time, you have no one to answer to, nothing to lose. You belong wholly to yourself. And even though some days you wish your world would stop spinning for a second, to let you catch your breath—believe me, someday you’re going to look back on this and you’re going to miss this feeling

Vultures We all have moments of darkness, moments when we are so unlike ourselves. And like vultures they wait for a slip, a misstep, then they take that part of us and try to convince the world that is all we are

I don’t think about myself as much as I used to. I guess that’s a good thing. I only think about the things that are missing from me.

The Gift of Everything You were the bearer of heartache, of pain, like nothing I had ever known. But look at what I have because of you. Look at what I’ve built. Only now can I look back and recognize the gift you have given me. Only now can I look at the all-consuming beauty of my life, press my palm to yours and say, Thank you for the gift of everything.

Wonder The first thing you sent me were fireworks. Sparks of light and color over a bridge to nowhere. I was already in love when we met that summer; I belonged to someone else. To make room for you, I had to ask the world for permission, but every answer was a dead end. But who am I to blame them for telling me what I already knew? So I danced around you like a storm, white light against the cool black sky, like strobe lights flickering on and off. I said we could be something, you and me. I said so much and meant it, but never proved it to you, did I? We both know what my word was worth, you and me both. You took my hand under a Ferris wheel, spitting light, spinning lies. You dazzled me, you know. You were incandescent. I don’t think we could have been anything, not really. But isn’t it something to wonder?

Universal law dictates that not a soul can hurt you without first handing you the keys to their own destruction

Woman’s Anthem Women are fierce. They are powerful. No matter what language they speak, how they dress, or the work they choose to do. What matters is they have a choice, and the freedom to carve out a life for themselves. As long as we know women who are strong and resilient, we must respect them, carry them forward, lift them up. For they are the product of all our other selves, the women we were, the ones we strive to be, the collective struggle of our mothers, our sisters, our daughters. Our salvation will only come if we stand together