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.

beauty is in the eye of anyone who sees what’s missing but can’t stop pointing to what’s still there.

I only call death when I forget how to speak eternity’s language, forget that to run out of time is to run into the truth that none of us have ever been our bodies. If we were—how would we fit in each other’s hearts?

Bitterness is the easiest way to leave this world having had only a near-life experience.

Sometimes grief is the fastest route to truth.

If your wounds are still open, trust they are doors to an answer, and walk through.

I understand being wooed by the finish line of sadness. Infinity still sends me nudes every day. I won’t deny she looks amazing, but I’m taken. My hand now promised to writing every page of my story except its end. Friend, you are who taught me that a difficult life is not less worth living than a gentle one. 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. This world needs those who know how to do that.

INSTEAD OF DEPRESSION try calling it hibernation. Imagine the darkness is a cave in which you will be nurtured by doing absolutely nothing. Hibernating animals don’t even dream. It’s okay if you can’t imagine spring. Sleep through the alarm of the world. Name your hopelessness a quiet hollow, a place you go to heal, a den you dug, Sweetheart, instead of a grave.

We need so much less than we take. We owe so much more than we give. Squirrels plant thousands of trees every year just from forgetting where they left their acorns. If we aimed to be just half as good as one of the earth’s mistakes, we could turn so much around. Our living would be seed, the future would have roots. We would cast nothing from the garden of itself. And we would make the thorns proud.

they do not think what is ahead of them is greater or less than what is behind them. That, you are certain, is the definition of peace.

In any moment, on any given day, I can measure my wellness by this question: Is my attention on loving, or is my attention on who isn’t loving me?

Becoming was how I prayed.

the pain was the sensation of my spirit not breaking,

every falling leaf is a tiny kite with a string too small to see, held by the part of me in charge of making beauty out of grief.

I remember the most effective remedy for my depression is being told I am not alone.