Lord of the Butterflies

by Andrea Gibson

Thirty times last month I thought, I can’t do this another day. Thirty times last month I did it another day.

knowing even when the truth isn’t hopeful the telling of it is.

but 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.

When a human dies, the soul searches the universe for something blushing, something shaking in the cold, something that scars, sweeps the universe for patience worn thin, the last nerve fighting for its life, the voice box aching to be heard.

whispering everything that grows already knows who we are

Do you ever feel like the best of you is something you’re still hoping to grow into?

The storm is in me.

know what the devil’s favorite music is—the sound of responsibility

I think I might be trapped in a miserable person’s body.

There is a world in which all the bad things that happened didn’t really happen and this is not that world.

couldn’t take a compliment without feeling like a thief, couldn’t believe anything past the first page of me was worth the read.

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.

—The heartbeat is actually the sound made by the heart valves closing. If you, my love, ever hold a stethoscope to my chest, I will tell you to listen for the silence in between. What is and what will always be yours is the sound of my heart finally opening.

we are truly not alone in this, that our veins are absolutely strings tied to other people’s kites, that our lives are that connected.