You Better Be Lightning (Button Poetry)

by Andrea Gibson

It was the first time in my life I’d seen pain become an instrument:

There is no escaping the magic now. Beauty caught me and never let me go.

I’ve never in my whole life been levelheaded, but the older I get, I’m more level-hearted—

and I think we make gods who look like us for a reason.

beauty is in the eye of anyone who sees what’s missing but can’t stop pointing to what’s still there. If there’s no definition for love yet— I think that’s a good one.

and when it comes to hearts, I want to always be a size queen

Burning to be better is my favorite quality on anyone, and you are on fire

Five minutes into our first conversation you knew I could take a punch better than I could take a compliment

I will refuse to call it heaven if the people I love (who put me through hell) aren’t there.

I couldn’t figure out how to hold something and set it free at the same time.

because this was not the first lifetime we said goodbye without wanting to say goodbye, was it?

My grandfather was a clock who stopped before I met him.

To make up for lost time, you need only to put down the grudge you are holding so you can pick up the phone and say, How many days did we need each other at the same time without knowing it? Bitterness is the easiest way to leave this world having had only a near-life experience.

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

No matter how it looks, you and everyone you know have hourglass figures. Each breath, a falling grain of sand.

If we never deny the inevitable end of the story, we will write it more beautiful while we’re alive.

NO SUCH THING AS THE INNOCENT BYSTANDER Silence rides shotgun wherever hate goes.

What if we don’t have to be healed to be whole?

Joy is just easier to carry than sorrow, and you could lift a city from how long you’ve spent holding what’s been nearly impossible to hold.

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.

I love myself is often spelled g-o-o-d-b-y-e

if your own story is one you aren’t sure you can survive, remove whatever sharpness you can from another person’s life.

You can die from a broken heart, but the opposite is also true.

Let your heart break so your spirit doesn’t.

I’ll tell him karma is a hell of a feminist.

Everyone can see who they were supposed to be. It’s the readiest grief in the world.

But you’re done making vacations out of people. You want a permanent home.

A place where you are loved not for how well you sing but for your willingness to pick a song everyone will want to sing with you.