Andrea Gibson: Everything but "I LOVE YOU" is small talk.

Lately I've been thinking about who I want to love, and how I want to love, and why I want to love the way I want to love, and what I need to learn to love that way, and how I need to become to become the kind of love I want to be. And when I break it all down, when I whittle it into a single breath, it essentially comes out like this: before I die, I want to be somebody's favorite hiding place, the place they can put everything they need to survive, every secret, every solitude, every nervous prayer, and be absolutely certain I will keep it safe. I will keep it safe.

Andrea Gibson

solitude prayer thinking

I know you think this world is too dark to even dream in color, but I’ve seen flowers bloom at midnight. I’ve seen kites fly in gray skies and they were real close to looking like the sunrise, and sometime it takes the most wounded wings the most broken things to notice how strong the breeze is, how precious the flight.

Andrea Gibson

strong real dream

I don't have a single plan for my life more important than learning to love people well.

Andrea Gibson

plans important people

I’d cut my soul into a million different pieces just to form a constellation to light your way home. I’d write love poems to the parts of yourself you can’t stand. I’d stand in the shadows of your heart and tell you I’m not afraid of your dark.

Andrea Gibson

home heart writing

I’m never gonna wait that extra twenty minutes to text you back, and I’m never gonna play hard to get when I know your life has been hard enough already. When we all know everyone’s life has been hard enough already it’s hard to watch the game we make of love, like everyone’s playing checkers with their scars, saying checkmate whenever they get out without a broken heart. Just to be clear I don’t want to get out without a broken heart. I intend to leave this life so shattered there’s gonna have to be a thousand separate heavens for all of my flying parts.

Andrea Gibson

enough-already play-hard heart

Commit to loving yourself completely. It’s the most radical thing you will do in your lifetime.

Andrea Gibson

loving-yourself radical lifetime

Sometimes the break in your heart is like the hole in the flute. Sometimes it’s the place where the music comes through.

Andrea Gibson

broken-heart music love

I'm good at loving books. I'm good at loving soft bed sheets. I'm good at loving coffees and teas. I am good at loving things that can't love me back, that don't have the power to leave. And maybe, that's why I love them.

Andrea Gibson

coffee tea book

Before I die, I want to be somebody’s favorite hiding place, the place they can put everything they know they need to survive, every secret, every solitude, every nervous prayer, and be absolutely certain I will keep it safe. I will keep it safe.

Andrea Gibson

broken-heart prayer inspirational

You never wish on shooting stars. You wish on the ones that have the courage to shine where they are.

Andrea Gibson

stars poetry inspirational

Don't google your name. Ever.

Andrea Gibson

pain heart writing

I would kiss you in the middle of the ocean during a lightning storm cuz I'd rather be left for dead than wondering what thunder sounds like.

Andrea Gibson

storm kissing ocean

...And for every day you paint the war, take a week and paint the beauty, the color, the shape of the landscape you’re marching towards. Everyone knows what you’re against; show them what you’re for.

Andrea Gibson

shapes color war

If you were to press your heart close up against somebody else’s heart eventually your hearts will start beating at the same time. And two little babies in an incubator, their hearts will beat at the same time. Love that. So if you have somebody in your life that is prone to anxiety, like myself, and if you happen to be a calm person, you could come up and hug me heart to heart and my heart hopefully would slow to yours. And I just love that idea. Or maybe yours would speed up to mine. But either way, we’ll be there together.

Andrea Gibson

heart baby ideas

I am living today as someone I had not yet become yesterday and tonight I will borrow only pieces of who I am today to carry with me to tomorrow.

Andrea Gibson

tonight who-i-am yesterday

You keep worrying you’re taking up too much space. I wish you’d let yourself be the milky way.

Andrea Gibson

space wish worry

Touch me ‘til my ribs become piano keys, ‘til there is sheet music scrolled across the inside of my lungs.

Andrea Gibson

ribs piano keys

Baby, I have no idea how this will end. Maybe the equator will fall like a hula hoop from the earth's hips and our mouths will freeze mid-kiss on our 80th anniversary or maybe tomorrow my absolute insanity combined with the absolute obstacle course of your communication skills will leave us like a love letter in a landfill. But whatever, however, whenever this ends I want you to know that right now, I love you forever.

Andrea Gibson

baby inspirational fall

What I know about living is the pain is never just ours Every time I hurt I know the wound is an echo So I keep a listening to the moment the grief becomes a window When I can see what I couldn’t see before, through the glass of my most battered dream, I watched a dandelion lose its mind in the wind and when it did, it scattered a thousand seeds. So the next time I tell you how easily I come out of my skin, don’t try to put me back in just say here we are together at the window aching for it to all get better

Andrea Gibson

pain hurt dream

Everyone’s chest is a living room wall with awkwardly placed photographs hiding fist-shaped holes.

Andrea Gibson

wall fists rooms