You Better Be Lightning (Button Poetry)

by Andrea Gibson

I know most people try hard to do good and find out too late they should have tried softer.

I love you because we have both showed up to kindness tryouts with notes from the school nurse that said we were too hurt to participate.

Regret is a time machine to the past. Worry is a time machine to the future. Gratitude is a time machine to the present.

I told myself, If you are going to be anything in the world tonight, you better be lightning. You better find something in you honest enough to strike them.

There is no moral of this story—there is only light and sadness. There is no moral of this story. It’s just a moment in my life where I did something wrong, and the earth, who has never not known what love is, held me anyway.