Andrea Gibson Quotes

Safety isn't always safe. You can find one on every gun. ~ Andrea Gibson

Forests may be gorgeous but there is nothing more alive than a tree that learns how to grow in a cemetery. ~ Andrea Gibson

I explain my gender by saying I am happiest on the road when I'm not here or there, but in between, that yellow line coming down the center of it all like a goddamn sunbeam. ~ Andrea Gibson

You are the best thing that has every happened to you. ~ Andrea Gibson

What Gods do you believe in? I'll build you a temple of mirrors so you can see them. ~ Andrea Gibson

I write because it is while I'm writing that I feel most connected to why we're here. I write because silence is a heavy weight to carry. I write to remember. I write to heal. I write to let the air in. I write as a practice of listening. ~ Andrea Gibson

Last night I saw your ghost pedalling a bicycle with a basket towards a moon as full as my heavy head and I wanted nothing more than to be sitting in that basket like ET with my glowing heart glowing right through my chest and my glowing finger pointing in the direction of our home. ~ Andrea Gibson

Just me and my suitcase, hanging out wit the sun, learning how to pack light. ~ Andrea Gibson

And if there's one thing in this world I've ever known for sure, it's that this girl is gonna crush me like a small bug, leave me so fucking broken there'll be body bags beneath my eyes from nights I cried so hard the stars died. But I'm like, go ahead. I'm all yours. I would kiss you in the middle of the ocean during a lightning storm, cause I'd rather be left for dead than left to wonder what thunder sounds like. ~ Andrea Gibson

Beating yourself up is never a fair fight. ~ Andrea Gibson

Sometimes the most healing thing to do is remind ourselves over and over and over, other people feel this too. ~ Andrea Gibson

I wonder how many people have died driving while checking how many likes their Facebook status got. I wonder how much life has been lost in the bloody ditch of approval, how many skulls have swallowed windshields trying to see if they are worthy of applause, worthy of their own heart's hungry beat. ~ Andrea Gibson

Cause I don't wanna be a witness to this life,
I want to be charged and convicted,
ear lifted to her song like a bouquet of yes
because my heart is a parachute that has never opened in time
and I wanna fuck up that pattern,
leave a hole where the cold comes in and fill it every day with her sun,
'cause anyone who has ever sat in lotus for more than a few seconds
knows it takes a hell of a lot more muscle to stay than to go ~ Andrea Gibson

It's okay. Everybody's survival looks a little bit like death sometimes. ~ Andrea Gibson

When all the good in you
starts arguing with all the bad in you
about who you really are,
never let the bad in you
make the better case. ~ Andrea Gibson

Hey, are you a boy or a - never mind, can I have a push on the swing? And some day, y'all, when we grow up, it's all gonna be that simple. ~ Andrea Gibson

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. ~ Andrea Gibson

Love is the only war worth dying for. But every time I say 'please, come back', I feel like I'm trying to find a dirty needle into a haystack. ~ Andrea Gibson

You are a mystery I promise I will never try to solve. ~ Andrea Gibson

I like imagining your body is Saturn,
my body ten thousand rings wrapped around you. ~ Andrea Gibson

Next time I will know it's normal to have a hard time breathing when you shake the dust. We make everything so complicated. Sometimes, the message in the bottle is "Don't drink so much - there's too much Novocaine in our wisdom teeth already. ~ Andrea Gibson

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. ~ Andrea Gibson

I met a woman and we were lying in her bed, about to kiss for the very first time. Just before our lips touched she jumped up and ran to her closet and grabbed a stethoscope. She came back to the bed, put the earpieces in my ears, slipped the disc down her shirt onto her heart, and whispered, 'I want you to listen to my heart speed up when you kiss me.' And I kissed her, and I listened to her heart beat faster and faster and faster. ~ Andrea Gibson

Every lover is a storm chaser.
Every good heart has lost its roof. ~ Andrea Gibson

You panic button collector. You clock of beautiful ticks. You run out the door if you need to. You flock to the front row of your own class. You feather everything until you know you can always, always shake like a leaf on my family tree and know you belong here. You belong here and everything you feel is okay. Everything you feel is okay. ~ Andrea Gibson

I don't believe we're hateful. I think mostly we're just asleep, but the math adds up the same. ~ Andrea Gibson

Fear is only a verb if you let it be. Don't you dare let go of my hand! ~ Andrea Gibson

Cause I might be naked and lonely Shaking branches for bones But I'm still time zones away From who I was the day before we met You were the first mile Where my heart broke a sweat And I wish you were here I wish you'd never left But mostly I wish you well I wish you my very very best. ~ Andrea Gibson

All living is storm chasing. Every good heart has lost its roof. Let the walls collapse at your feet. Scream, 'Timber,' when they ask how you are. 'Fine' is the suckiest word. It is the opposite of 'here. ~ Andrea Gibson

Baby, I have no idea how this will end. Maybe the equator will fall like a hula hoop from the earth's hips and our mouths will freeze mid-kiss on our 80th anniversary or maybe tomorrow my absolute insanity combined with the absolute obstacle course of your communication skills will leave us like a love letter in a landfill. But whatever, however, whenever this ends I want you to know that right now, I love you forever. ~ Andrea Gibson

I know this world is far from perfect. I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon. I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic. But every ocean has a shoreline and every shoreline has a tide that is constantly returning to wake the songbirds in our hands, to wake the music in our bones, to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that new born river that has to run through the center of our hearts to find its way home. ~ Andrea Gibson

Do you think anger is a sincere emotion or the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain? ~ Andrea Gibson

We have to create; it is the only thing louder than destruction. ~ Andrea Gibson

Tell me we'll be naming our children Beautiful and nothing else. ~ Andrea Gibson

I know there are couples who never argue. But you and I, we are always going to fight for love. ~ Andrea Gibson

Patriarchy taught me how to take a punch better than I could take a compliment. ~ Andrea Gibson

I am so grateful for having a mind that can be changed. ~ Andrea Gibson

My mother says it is totally fine
if I blow off steam
as long as I speak in an octave
my kindness can still reach. ~ Andrea Gibson

We are all instruments pulling the bows across our own lungs. Windmills, still startling in every storm. Have you ever seen a newborn blinking at the light? I wanna do that every day. I wanna know what the kite called itself when it got away, when it escaped into the night ... ~ Andrea Gibson

The holy have done more damage to this world than the devil ever could. ~ Andrea Gibson

Our insanity is not that we see people who aren't there. It's that we ignore the ones who are. ~ Andrea Gibson

I said to the the sun
'Tell me about the big bang'
The sun said
'It hurts to become ~ Andrea Gibson

And feelings were always smarter things than thoughts ~ Andrea Gibson

Something difficult to stomach in this life is the fact that we might all learn and grow at a pace that will hurt people ~ Andrea Gibson

You keep worrying you're taking up too much space. I wish you'd let yourself be the milky way. ~ Andrea Gibson

I know you think this world is too dark to even dream in color,
but I've seen flowers bloom at midnight.
I've seen kites fly in gray skies
and they were real close to looking like the sunrise,
and sometime it takes the most wounded wings
the most broken things
to notice how strong the breeze is,
how precious the flight. ~ Andrea Gibson

You can have a cold war with yourself, even in the summertime ~ Andrea Gibson

It isn't that you don't like boys.
It's that you only like boys you want to be ~ Andrea Gibson

I can guarantee a haircut will never tell you anything about someone's gender, who they love, or how they fuck. ~ Andrea Gibson

Just to be clear I don't want to get out without a broken heart. I indend to leave this life so shattered there's gonna have to be a thousand seperate heavens for all of my flying parts. ~ Andrea Gibson

Say this is what the pain made of you:
an open, open, open road,
an avalanche of feel it all. ~ Andrea Gibson

You have a heart of gold and I am kneeling in your bloodstream panning for the only thing that has ever felt like home. ~ Andrea Gibson

Everything but "I LOVE YOU" is small talk. ~ Andrea Gibson

We have cried so hard our tears have left scars on our cheekbones ~ Andrea Gibson

Storms are born

from the same sky we write hymns to when the sun shines. ~ Andrea Gibson

So guess what, if I ever have my own team I am picking everyone first even the worst kid and the kid with the stutter like a skipping record 'cause I know all of us are scratched, even if you can't hear it when we speak. ~ Andrea Gibson

And for every day you paint the war, take a week and paint the beauty, the color, the shape of the landscape you're marching towards. Everyone knows what you're against; show them what you're for. ~ Andrea Gibson

We all have bullets beneath our skin we pray our lovers won't flinch at when they find. ~ Andrea Gibson

Coming into our own humanity often takes enormous effort, commitment and bravery. I believe we should be taught that at an early age. I believe part of the violence of our culture stirs from the myth is kindness is natural. I think kindness would only be natural in a world where no one is hurt, and everyone is hurt. So kindness is work. Kindness is knees in the garden weeding our bites, our apathies, our cold shoulders, our silences, our cruelties, whatever taught us the world 'ugly'. ~ Andrea Gibson

Science just proved that an atom can exist in two places at one time and I believe people are not always only at the scene of their crimes. Even the worst of us, I trust, are often also somewhere holy, somewhere kind. ~ Andrea Gibson

She's wondering how many women are walking around this world feeling the tingling of their amputated wings remembering what it was to fly to sing ~ Andrea Gibson

There will be music for you
one day. ~ Andrea Gibson

Any feminist who has ever taken the high road will tell you the high road gets backed up and sometimes we need to take a detour straight through the belly of uncensored rage. ~ Andrea Gibson

I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun; I know the heartbeat of his mother. ~ Andrea Gibson

What I know about living is the pain is never just ours
Every time I hurt I know the wound is an echo
So I keep a listening to the moment the grief becomes a window
When I can see what I couldn't see before,
through the glass of my most battered dream, I watched a dandelion lose its mind in the wind
and when it did, it scattered a thousand seeds.
So the next time I tell you how easily I come out of my skin, don't try to put me back in
just say here we are together at the window aching for it to all get better ~ Andrea Gibson

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 ~ Andrea Gibson

I know there are things I haven't survived
I know there are people in this world who have had to work really hard to survive me,
I don't ever want to take that lightly
But I want the heavy to anchor me brave, to anchor me loving, to anchor me in something that will absolutely hold me to my word
When I tell Cupid I intend to keep walking out to the tip of his arrow,
to bend it back towards myself,
to aim for my goodness; 'til the muscle in my chest tears from the stretch of becoming. ~ Andrea Gibson

Love is like sunshine. Sometimes you have to get burned to know you were there. I want to know that I'm here. ~ Andrea Gibson

This is for the times you went through hell so someone else wouldn't have to. ~ Andrea Gibson

you don't lose a person
like a set of keys because you don't find them again
and you can still get to where you're going. ~ Andrea Gibson

My mouth is a fire escape.
The words coming out
don't care that they are naked.
There is something burning in there. ~ Andrea Gibson

So at 12:31pm, when he decided not to-
when he came down, when the road opened-
I did, too, my whole world, my whole mind
went home with living proof
of what I'd only before known in theory:

that we are truly not alone in this,
that our veins are absolutely strings
tied to other people's kites,
that our lives are connected.
That my butterflies are never gone,

they're just flying around
in someone else's belly sometimes'. ~ Andrea Gibson

How many wars will it take us to learn that only the dead return? ~ Andrea Gibson

I am living today as someone I had not yet become yesterday
And tonight I'll only borrow pieces of who I am today
To carry with me to tomorrow ~ Andrea Gibson

If you told her the war is over do you think she'd sleep? ~ Andrea Gibson

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. ~ Andrea Gibson

I'm never gonna wait that extra twenty minutes to text you back and I'm never gonna play hard to get when I know your life has been hard enough already. ~ Andrea Gibson

If you were to press your heart close up against somebody else's heart eventually your hearts will start beating at the same time. And two little babies in an incubator, their hearts will beat at the same time. Love that. So if you have somebody in your life that is prone to anxiety, like myself, and if you happen to be a calm person, you could come up and hug me heart to heart and my heart hopefully would slow to yours. And I just love that idea. Or maybe yours would speed up to mine. But either way, we'll be there together. ~ Andrea Gibson

feeling holy as Mary

beneath the hands of a one-night stand

who's calling somebody else's name. ~ Andrea Gibson

I know David argued with the chisel. I know he said, 'Make me softer. ~ Andrea Gibson

We're boxed in and labeled before we're ever able to speak who we believe we are or who we dream we'll become. ~ Andrea Gibson

And I say,
I crash in to things in the dark
Even when the lights are on
And I am wrong more often than I am writing
And even then, I am often wrong
But when my friends are in the bathroom at the bar
Rolling dollar bills in to telescopes,
Claiming they can see God,
I will come to you ~ Andrea Gibson

Listen, I know you run your mouth so your mind can rest. ~ Andrea Gibson

Love isn't always magic. But if I offered my body to the magician, if I told him to cut me in half so after that I could come to you whole and ask for you back would you listen for this dark alley love song? For the winter we heated our home from the steam off our own bodies? ~ Andrea Gibson

Some days my heart beats so fast
my ribcage sounds like a fucking railroad track
and my breath is a train I just can't catch. ~ Andrea Gibson

Andrea Gibson is a truly American poet, or rather, she represents the America I want to live in. Her work lights a candle to lead us where we need to go. ~ Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

I WANT YOU TO TELL ME ABOUT EVERY PERSON YOU'VE EVER BEEN IN LOVE WITH. TELL ME WHY YOU LOVED THEM, THEN TELL ME WHY THEY LOVED YOU. TELL ME ABOUT A DAY IN YOUR LIFE YOU DIDN'T THINK YOU'D LIVE THROUGH. TELL ME WHAT THE WORD "HOME" MEANS TO YOU AND TELL ME IN A WAY THAT I'LL KNOW YOUR MOTHER'S NAME JUST BY THE WAY YOU DESCRIBE YOUR BED ROOM WHEN YOU WERE 8. SEE, I WANNA KNOW THE FIRST TIME YOU FELT THE WEIGHT OF HATE AND IF THAT DAY STILL TREMBLES BENEATH YOUR BONES. DO YOU PREFER TO PLAY IN PUDDLES OF RAIN OR BOUNCE IN THE BELLIES OF SNOW? AND IF YOU WERE TO BUILD A SNOWMAN, WOULD YOU RIP TWO BRANCHES FROM A TREE TO BUILD YOUR SNOWMAN ARMS? OR WOULD YOU LEAVE THE SNOWMAN ARMLESS FOR THE SAKE OF BEING HARMLESS TO THE TREE? AND IF YOU WOULD, WOULD YOU NOTICE HOW THAT TREE WEEPS FOR YOU BECAUSE YOUR SNOWMAN HAS NO ARMS TO HUG YOU EVERY TIME YOU KISS HIM ON THE CHEEK? DO YOU KISS YOUR FRIENDS ON THE CHEEK? DO YOU SLEEP BESIDE THEM WHEN THEY'RE SAD, EVEN IF IT MAKES YOUR LOVER MAD? DO YOU THINK THAT ANGER IS A SINCERE EMOTION OR JUST THE TIMID MOTION OF A FRAGILE HEART TRYING TO BEAT AWAY ITS PAIN? SEE, I WANNA KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF YOUR FIRST NAME. AND IF YOU OFTEN LIE AWAKE AT NIGHT AND IMAGINE YOUR MOTHER'S JOY WHEN SHE SPOKE IT FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME. I WANT YOU TELL ME ALL THE WAYS YOU'VE BEEN UNKIND. TELL ME ALL THE WAYS YOU'VE BEEN CRUEL. SEE, I WANNA KNOW MORE THAN WHAT YOU DO FOR A LIVING. I WANNA KNOW HOW MUCH OF YOUR LIFE YOU SPEND JUST GIVING. AND IF YOU LOVE YOURSE ~ Andrea Gibson

None of us are pretty, but our ugly has an alibi. ~ Andrea Gibson

We've been hundreds of years

measuring the size of their hearts

by the size of our fists, ~ Andrea Gibson

I'd cut my soul into a million different pieces just to form a constellation to light your way home. I'd write love poems to the parts of yourself you can't stand. I'd stand in the shadows of your heart and tell you I'm not afraid of your dark. ~ Andrea Gibson

You never wish on shooting stars. You wish on the ones that have the courage to shine where they are. ~ Andrea Gibson

Do you know they found land mines in woman's souls. ~ Andrea Gibson

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. ~ Andrea Gibson

The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables.
Said if I could get down thirteen turnips a day
I would be grounded, rooted.
Said my head would not keep flying away
to where the darkness lives.

The psychic told me my heart carries too much weight.
Said for twenty dollars she'd tell me what to do.
I handed her the twenty. She said, "Stop worrying, darling.
You will find a good man soon."

The first psycho therapist told me to spend
three hours each day sitting in a dark closet
with my eyes closed and ears plugged.
I tried it once but couldn't stop thinking
about how gay it was to be sitting in the closet.

The yogi told me to stretch everything but the truth.
Said to focus on the out breath. Said everyone finds happiness
when they care more about what they give
than what they get.

The pharmacist said, "Lexapro, Lamicatl, Lithium, Xanax."

The doctor said an anti-psychotic might help me
forget what the trauma said.

The trauma said, "Don't write these poems.
Nobody wants to hear you cry
about the grief inside your bones."

But my bones said, "Tyler Clementi jumped
from the George Washington Bridge
into the Hudson River convinced
he was entirely alone."

My bones said, "Write the poems. ~ Andrea Gibson

When your heart is broken, you plant seeds in the cracks and pray for rain. ~ Andrea Gibson

Let me also say I wanna make you sandwhiches,
And soup,
And peanut butter cookies,
Though, the truth is peanutbutter is actually really bad for you 'cause they grow peanuts in old cotton fields to clean the toxins out of the soil,
But hey, you like peanutbutter and I like you! ~ Andrea Gibson

I know now it doesn't matter how well I say grace
if I am sitting at a table where I am offering no bread to eat ~ Andrea Gibson

Your ignorance keeps dismembering every piece of patience I have left. ~ Andrea Gibson

I wish for a heart you can see straight through, for a voice that glows in the dark, and a few really good friends to say, That's the way to go. ~ Andrea Gibson

I remember the way love
used to glow on my skin
before he made his way in
now every touch feels like a sin ~ Andrea Gibson