Loves of Our Lives Quotes

“Anxiety and I do everything together.

That sounds better
than saying
I do everything with anxiety.

But I do everything.

We wake up
and go to sleep together.

We think everyone hates us together.

I hate us together.

But we’re roommates;
we live together.

Although some days,
it doesn’t feel much like living.
It feels more like unease and discomfort,

and struggling through conversations,
and wondering if I said too much
or too little,

or the wrong thing altogether.

It doesn’t feel like living;
it feels like floating, but heavily,

and hunger with no appetite,

and butterflies—
but bad ones.

It feels like I’m dying,
and anxiety agrees.

So we panic
and ruminate together.

We Google it all day long.

We sleep too much,
and then sleep too little,

and both make it worse,
not better.

And we call it living.

We have the kind of relationship
I would urge anyone I love
to work on—

not leave,
but work on.

Because too much time with anything
is bound to make you sick of it eventually.

And I’m sick of it,
and sick with it,
but stuck with it all the same,

like a bad memory
or a bad habit.

And when I don’t feel it,
I feel unbalanced.

I wonder where it went
until it comes back,

and then I feel like me again, somehow.

I think anxiety and I
may always do everything together—

or most things anyway.

So I will keep doing things anyway.

Because even if we’re doing it together,
we’ve got to live.”
― Josie Balka, Loves of Our Lives: Poems for Hopeful Hearts

“I Hope You Don’t Miss Me in Heaven

I hope you don’t miss me in heaven
as badly as I miss you here.

I hope, for you, the silence is peaceful,
and the thought of me feels like déjà vu—
a wave of familiarity
that you can’t quite put your finger on.

Empty for only a moment,
once in a while,
and gone like the wind after that.

I hope when you got there,
you were swept over
by a wave of forgetfulness,
so you’re still entirely full
of life and happiness,
but you can’t remember why.

And pieces of me are a part of you
in such a way
that you feel even more complete.

I can’t imagine heaven feels
how I feel without you,
and I hope it doesn’t.

I hope you yearn for nothing
and no one.

I hope there is no pain at all.
Maybe I am feeling both of ours at once,
and that’s why it feels this heavy.

If that’s the case,
it means you are with me,
and I’m okay with that.

I hope that in heaven, grief does not exist,
and I show up in your dreams on occasion,
and the feeling of having me near you
lingers with you through the morning
after you wake up.

I hope those are the same nights
you show up in mine.

And if, in heaven,
you can’t remember me at all,
I hope the wave of forgetfulness
that overtook you when you arrived
turns into an ocean of remembering
when we meet again.

Like we never spent a moment apart,
and I will forget
what it was like to be without you.

And you will never have known
what it was like to be without me.

Because you found the peace
I’d hoped you’d find,
while I found my way back to you.”
― Josie Balka, Loves of Our Lives: Poems for Hopeful Hearts

“If you’ve ever had a dog, you know.
You know what it’s like to be loved
just for being exactly who you are.

You could have nothing,
and you’d still be everything to them.
You could lose it all,
and they wouldn’t bat an eye
in the unconditional way
you can only understand
if you’ve ever had a dog.

You know how to find the good
in a slow walk in the rain,
even while you’re chilled to the bone.

You know that even on the worst day ever,
there’s a little happiness
on the other side of the door,
if only for a moment.

You know how to selflessly surrender
your last and best bite of food
without ever hearing a thank-you.
But you have felt the thank-yous endlessly.

If you’ve ever had a dog,
you’ve been a protector
and been protected.

You’ve been viewed as everything,
even in moments
when you’ve had nothing left to give.

Because in a world where you have a dog,
just putting your feet on the ground in the morning
is enough to be cheered on endlessly.

And if that’s not the kind of unwavering love
you need to feel like you’re enough,
I don’t know what is.

And if you’ve ever had a dog, you know
that the love is unconditional,
but the time you get is not.

And years are fast,
but dog years are faster.

If you’ve ever had a dog,
you will know
one of the greatest loves
and one of the greatest heartbreaks
is having a dog.

But you will carry the feeling of being loved,
just for being who you are,
until the end of time.

You will always know,
in some way or another,
that you are enough.

And it will be because
you had a dog.”
― Josie Balka, Loves of Our Lives: Poems for Hopeful Hearts