Butterflies Rising Love Quotes

The regular choreography, entrances and exits of blooms in stages such that the garden looked like an ever-evolving carousel of swirling rainbows and radiant butterflies, seemed condensed. All of the flowers still obeyed some silent urgent command to make their debut. But this year, it definitely unfolded more quickly, as if racing to meet a new compelling deadline.

The moth prefers the moon and detests the sun, while the butterfly loves the sun and hides from the moon. Every living creature responds to light. But depending on the amount of light you have inside, determines which lamp in the sky your heart will swoon.

Somewhere someone thinks they love someone else exactly like I love you. Somewhere someone shakes from the ripple of a thousand butterflies inside a single stomach. Somewhere someone is packing their bags to see the world with someone else. Somewhere someone is reaching through the most terrifying few feet of space to hold the hand of someone else. Somewhere someone is watching someone else’s chest rise and fall with the breath of slumber. Somewhere someone is pouring ink like blood onto pages fighting to say the truth that has no words. Somewhere someone is waiting patient but exhausted to just be with someone else. Somewhere someone is opening their eyes to a sunrise in someplace they have never seen. Somewhere someone is pulling out the petals twisting the apple stem picking up the heads up penny rubbing the rabbits foot knocking on wood throwing coins into fountains hunting for the only clover with only 4 leaves skipping over the cracks snapping the wishbone crossing their fingers blowing out the candles sending dandelion seeds into the air ushering eyelashes off their thumbs finding the first star and waiting for 11:11 on their clock to spend their wishes on someone else. Somewhere someone is saying goodbye but somewhere someone else is saying hello. Somewhere someone is sharing their first or their last kiss with their or no longer their someone else. Somewhere someone is wondering if how they feel is how the other they feels about them and if both theys could ever become a they together. Somewhere someone is the decoder ring to all of the great mysteries of life for someone else. Somewhere someone is the treasure map. Somewhere someone thinks they love someone else exactly like I love you. Somewhere someone is wrong.

The dead never truly die. They simply change form.

now that i know you exist, how do i not love you

Give me the purple smoke, rising higher and higher into my brain until I dance with the purple butterflies.” -Girl with the violet eyes.

THE MOTH AND THE BUTTERFLY When the sun rises over the horizon, the butterfly emerges to dance in its brilliant light. It flickers its colorful wings with euphoria, To celebrate all the beauty found in the majestic garden of life. When the moon arrives in the darkness, The moth appears at the disappearance of sunlight. It flickers its pale wings as it shakes from its deep slumber, To go search for food To carry it through the night. The moth prefers the moon and detests the sun, while the butterfly loves the sun and hides from the moon. Every living creature responds to light, But depending on the amount of light you have inside, Determines which lamp in the sky Your heart will swoon. Poetry by Suzy Kassem

i know that will never, ever be able to love myself if i keep apologizing for how other people have decided to feel about me.

you walk in, and my heart beats different

Let Us Gather In A Flourishing Way Let us gather in a flourishing way opening with sun light grains songs we carry every day I pasture the young body happy to give and give pearls pearls of corn flowing tree of life at the four corners let us gather in a flourishing way happy life full of strength to giving birth to fragrant rivers Fresh sweet green turquoise strong rainbows flesh of our children let us gather in a flourishing way in the light and in the flesh of our heart to toil quiet in fields of blossoms together to stretch the arms With the quiet rain in the morning Early on our forehead star Heat sky and wisdom to meet us Where we toil always in the garden of our Struggle and joy let us offer our hearts to greet our eagle rising freedom woven branches celebrate arms branches nopales stones feathers bursting piercing figs and avocados Butterfly ripe fields and clear seas of our face to breathe all the way in blessing to give seeds to grow maiztlán in the hands of our love.

i know that i will never, ever be able to love myself if i keep apologizing for how other people have decided to feel about me.

...come a little closer and show me love-colored things

love me… and tell me how free my lungs will always breathe when i love you.

love shouldn't feel like a choice between being loved or loving yourself… it should be where both things collide.⁣

my soul just wants to be closer to yours – butterflies rising

my soul just wants to be closer to yours

when i love, it’s the littlest things about someone that can make a complete mess of me… details, i love madly in details.

those lips so full of lush and love… and talking of so much life

everything is more beautiful when i'm in love… but i feel so much stronger when i'm not.

there's this feeling when you look at me… i think maybe it’s love… how you actually give a damn about all the mess inside my head.

we love like fireflies, how we gravitate to each other’s glow

he gave me every reason not to believe in love… yet here i am after everything, so beautifully certain it exists

the universe gave me a relentlessly loyal heart, i could love through lifetimes

give me love that takes me wayward, off beaten paths and down country roads, let’s stargaze, we’re made for so much more than plans and picket fences

be a love firefly

i love that way you smile like wild defiance… i wanna bottle it up and use it to fight off all my fears

my heart, oh how wild it loves

you are allowed to be lovely and important, to speak up, and out, and convicted from the same mouth that tends to love and cradles lilies it’s stunning when you let why you’re here spill out of you

i want to learn to look at myself in the same way that i look at things i love, to feel the way i feel when i think something is beautiful… to look at myself and see something that i love and think is beautiful.

never be ashamed of how deeply and passionately you loved someone who destroyed you, because destroying things is just who they are… but loving things deeply and passionately is who you are – butterflies rising

you want to love again… but first, you have to put to rest the unrest that you felt with the hands you held before. you gave that half-love your full attention for so long, and now your heart needs to take some space to breathe… new love needs fresh air.

Now that the day is almost done, the world of glass recedes, the butterfly threat diminishes. I imagine that we're both here in this bed, that my invisible body is nestled against hers. We are breathing at the same pace, our chests rising and falling in unison. We have no need to whisper, because at this distance, all we need is thought. Our eyes close at the same time. We feel the same sheets against us, the same night. Our breath slows together. We split into different versions of the same dreams. Sleep takes us at the exact same time.

i don’t know why it is, but… you feel like home, and everywhere i’ve never been, all at once. it doesn’t make sense… or maybe it does? maybe love is the safest place you could ever be, and every new and undiscovered place you have yet to go, all at the same time. yeah… i think that’s perfectly how it’s supposed to feel.

The first butterfly sees the smoke from a flame rising in the distance and declares, “I know about love.” This butterfly is in the station of islam, because she uses her rational intellect to outwardly deduce from the smoke that she sees the presence of light. This realm of knowing is known as ilm al-yaqin, or the “knowledge of certainty.” The second butterfly actually sees the light and feels the heat from the flame and declares, “I know how love’s fire can burn.” This butterfly is in a station of iman, because she not only intellectually believes in the presence of light but she has directly experienced the flame. This realm of knowing is known as ayn al-yaqin, or the “eye of certainty.” The third butterfly flies directly into the flame, dissolving itself within the light. This butterfly is consumed by love and so she has no words to offer. It is in the station of ihsan, because she has disappeared and become entirely embraced by the light of what she loved. This realm of knowing is known as haqq al-yaqin, or the “truth of certainty.

She is fragile as the morning dew melting in the warmth of a child's smile; stirring at the lonely, lovely waft of a butterfly's wings; tender as the curve of a wildflower petal. She is fierce as a summer storm now raging against the fiery sky; now raining tears to soothe the sun-scorched earth. She is soft as a midnight breeze swaying to the sound of waves breaking on distant shores; whispering comfort to a world steeped in the dark night of inhumanity. She is brilliant as the rising Phoenix lifting the suffering from the ashes; her own suffering woven into wings of fire in the long watches of the night. She is serene and turbulent as the silvered water hiding currents unknown beneath the gentle gaze of a human who has walked a thousand miles and still has more to go.

Ode to the Beloved’s Hips" Bells are they—shaped on the eighth day—silvered percussion in the morning—are the morning. Swing switch sway. Hold the day away a little longer, a little slower, a little easy. Call to me— I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock right now—so to them I come—struck-dumb chime-blind, tolling with a throat full of Hosanna. How many hours bowed against this Infinity of Blessed Trinity? Communion of Pelvis, Sacrum, Femur. My mouth—terrible angel, ever-lasting novena, ecstatic devourer. O, the places I have laid them, knelt and scooped the amber—fast honey—from their openness— Ah Muzen Cab’s hidden Temple of Tulúm—licked smooth the sticky of her hip—heat-thrummed ossa coxae. Lambent slave to ilium and ischium—I never tire to shake this wild hive, split with thumb the sweet- dripped comb—hot hexagonal hole—dark diamond— to its nectar-dervished queen. Meanad tongue— come-drunk hum-tranced honey-puller—for her hips, I am—strummed-song and succubus. They are the sign: hip. And the cosign: a great book— the body’s Bible opened up to its Good News Gospel. Alleluias, Ave Marías, madre mías, ay yay yays, Ay Dios míos, and hip-hip-hooray. Cult of Coccyx. Culto de cadera. Oracle of Orgasm. Rorschach’s riddle: What do I see? Hips: Innominate bone. Wish bone. Orpheus bone. Transubstantiation bone—hips of bread, wine-whet thighs. Say the word and healed I shall be: Bone butterfly. Bone wings. Bone Ferris wheel. Bone basin bone throne bone lamp. Apparition in the bone grotto—6th mystery— slick rosary bead—Déme la gracia of a decade in this garden of carmine flower. Exile me to the enormous orchard of Alcinous—spiced fruit, laden-tree—Imparadise me. Because, God, I am guilty. I am sin-frenzied and full of teeth for pear upon apple upon fig. More than all that are your hips. They are a city. They are Kingdom— Troy, the hollowed horse, an army of desire— thirty soldiers in the belly, two in the mouth. Beloved, your hips are the war. At night your legs, love, are boulevards leading me beggared and hungry to your candy house, your baroque mansion. Even when I am late and the tables have been cleared, in the kitchen of your hips, let me eat cake. O, constellation of pelvic glide—every curve, a luster, a star. More infinite still, your hips are kosmic, are universe—galactic carousel of burning comets and Big Big Bangs. Millennium Falcon, let me be your Solo. O, hot planet, let me circumambulate. O, spiral galaxy, I am coming for your dark matter. Along las calles de tus muslos I wander— follow the parade of pulse like a drum line— descend into your Plaza del Toros— hands throbbing Miura bulls, dark Isleros. Your arched hips—ay, mi torera. Down the long corridor, your wet walls lead me like a traje de luces—all glitter, glowed. I am the animal born to rush your rich red muletas—each breath, each sigh, each groan, a hooked horn of want. My mouth at your inner thigh—here I must enter you—mi pobre Manolete—press and part you like a wound— make the crowd pounding in the grandstand of your iliac crest rise up in you and cheer.

am i safe here, am i seen here, can i breathe here, do i bloom here, can i grow here, can i glow here, do i feel free here, does my pulse stir and my heart beat here, can i trust this, is there truth here, is it beautiful here… do i feel beautiful here, and not just do i feel loved here… but do i get to love me here. out of all the questions i have with someone… i think the ones that ask, “what does it feel like here?” are my most important ones.

In seconds, the room flooded with wide-eyed girls wanting to meet the artist of the butterfly stories. Stories about healing and redemption. Love and friendship. Stories about shifting shadows and an armory full of color to drive the darkness away. "Emerald Dawn rises early before her sisters wake. With her smile, she charms the sun and chases clouds away. Diamonds hide among the silvery dew. Rubies shimmer in the roses. And she tiptoes through the castle garden to find their hiding spaces.

Now let me tell you something. I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises, on land where it floods forest and mountains with honey coloured light, at sea where it rises and sets like a blood orange in a multicoloured nest of cloud, slipping in and out of the vast ocean. I have seen a thousand moons: harvest moons like gold coins, winter moons as white as ice chips, new moons like baby swans’ feathers. I have seen seas as smooth as if painted, coloured like shot silk or blue as a kingfisher or transparent as glass or black and crumpled with foam, moving ponderously and murderously. I have felt winds straight from the South Pole, bleak and wailing like a lost child; winds as tender and warm as a lover’s breath; winds that carried the astringent smell of salt and the death of seaweeds; winds that carried the moist rich smell of a forest floor, the smell of a million flowers. Fierce winds that churned and moved the sea like yeast, or winds that made the waters lap at the shore like a kitten. I have known silence: the cold, earthy silence at the bottom of a newly dug well; the implacable stony silence of a deep cave; the hot, drugged midday silence when everything is hypnotised and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun; the silence when great music ends. I have heard summer cicadas cry so that the sound seems stitched into your bones. I have heard tree frogs in an orchestration as complicated as Bach singing in a forest lit by a million emerald fireflies. I have heard the Keas calling over grey glaciers that groaned to themselves like old people as they inched their way to the sea. I have heard the hoarse street vendor cries of the mating Fur seals as they sang to their sleek golden wives, the crisp staccato admonishment of the Rattlesnake, the cobweb squeak of the Bat and the belling roar of the Red deer knee-deep in purple heather. I have heard Wolves baying at a winter’s moon, Red howlers making the forest vibrate with their roaring cries. I have heard the squeak, purr and grunt of a hundred multi-coloured reef fishes. I have seen hummingbirds flashing like opals round a tree of scarlet blooms, humming like a top. I have seen flying fish, skittering like quicksilver across the blue waves, drawing silver lines on the surface with their tails. I have seen Spoonbills flying home to roost like a scarlet banner across the sky. I have seen Whales, black as tar, cushioned on a cornflower blue sea, creating a Versailles of fountain with their breath. I have watched butterflies emerge and sit, trembling, while the sun irons their wings smooth. I have watched Tigers, like flames, mating in the long grass. I have been dive-bombed by an angry Raven, black and glossy as the Devil’s hoof. I have lain in water warm as milk, soft as silk, while around me played a host of Dolphins. I have met a thousand animals and seen a thousand wonderful things. But— All this I did without you. This was my loss. All this I want to do with you. This will be my gain. All this I would gladly have forgone for the sake of one minute of your company, for your laugh, your voice, your eyes, hair, lips, body, and above all for your sweet, ever-surprising mind which is an enchanting quarry in which it is my privilege to delve.

the sweet and wild rebellion in you… the poetry in those eyes… those dreamer's eyes learning to see in the dark. and all that beautiful madness tangled in your hair. toes dangling over the edge, testing a new universe. it's ok to take small steps and deep breaths, love… but also, let yourself start to take up your space. and don't you dare say you're sorry when you do. and you'll be rejected for these wings, these fires, for this sweet and wild rebellion in you. but these are such. beautiful. things. so keep choosing you… because nothing will matter if you reject you. if it needs you small, don't let it hold you anymore. don't let anything that needs you ordinary tame you ever again.

that moment right before something wild and beautiful is about to happen… it's why that girl loves a drop… you get pulled into that moment that holds your breath, and then the music takes over like the whole world is high on soul-driven adrenaline / and in that feeling right before a kiss… there's that universe that only the two of you exist in, and then the kiss takes over your whole body like some kind of love-flavored mescaline / it's the let-go before the give-in / the suspension before the collision / when we hand our head over to our heart and let something made of magic find its way in …she likes the way that feels… that moment right before something wild and beautiful is about to happen.

he said, what do you want? i said… you. he said, no. i want to know what you want… for you. i want… to search. and stretch. and grow. and glow. and drip myself in wild creativity, and burn and breathe at once in this skin. in these lungs. wings untethered, under the moon, into the sky, and to dream big and bigger and biggest, and to feel free in here… inside my anxious chest. to just. feel. free. and to have the universe say… yes, you are worthy of all this. and yes… you. …the way you give me butterflies and adrenaline highs, and who you are, and how you are, and how you think and speak and feel and exist and move, and there’s this feeling when you look at me… i think this is maybe love… how you actually give a damn about all this mess inside my head.

bombs poured down from the sky exploding across trachimbrod in bursts of light and heat those watching the festivities hollered ran frantically they jumped into the bubbling splashing frantically dynamic water not after the sack of gold buy to save themselves they stayed under as long as they could they surfaced to seize air and look for loved ones my safran picked up his wife and carried her like a newlywed into the water which seemed amid the falling trees and hackling crackling explosions the safest place hundreds of bodies poured into the brod that river with my name I embraced them with open arms come to me come I wanted to save them all to save everybody from everybody the bombs rained from the sky and it was not the explosions or scattering shrapnel that would be our death not the heckling cinders not the laughing debris but all of the bodies bodies flailing and grabbing hold of one another bodies looking something to hold on to my safran lost sight of his wife who was carried deeper into me by the pull of the bodies the silent shrieks were carried in bubbles to the surface where they popped PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE the kicking in zosha’s belly became more and more PLEASE PLEASE the baby refused to die like this PLEASE the bombs came down cackling smoldering and my safran was able to break free from the human mass and float downstream over the small falls to clearer waters zosha was pulled down PLEASE and the baby refusing to die like this was pulled up and out of her body turning the waters around her red she surfaced like a bubble to the light to oxygen to life to life WAWAWAWAWAWA she cried she was perfectly healthy and she would have lived except for the umbilical cord that pulled her back under toward her mother who was barely conscious but conscious of the cord and tried to break it with her hands and then bite it with her teeth but could not it would not be broken and she died with her perfectly healthy nameless baby in her arms she held it to her chest the crowd pulled itself into itself long after the bombing ceased the confused the frightened the desperate mass of babies children teenagers adults elderly all pulled at each other to survive but pulled each other into me drowning each other killing each other the bodies began to rise one at a time until I couldn’t be seen through all of the bodies blue skin open white eyes I was invisible under them I was the carcass they were the butterflies white eyes blue skin this is what we’ve done we’ve killed our own babies to save them

In My Prayer. My silent niche. You incarnate in my prayer. Dawn is all dancing like a rainbow in your smile. Anxious to uncover dreams after morning. The desire to arrange sparkly beads in your hair. Reduce heartbeat, please at the tips of your fingers. I will pray together with night just to keep remembering you. A never ending memory to always say your name. Silence that leads to longing for the rising of light. Horizon knocked on all the gates, which grabbed a reprehensible body, who hesitated to stop at the tip of the tongue. Lips murmuring, stringing questions hung at the end of time. The self that is always broken and dishonest, who is kufr and who is infidel. All beings submit to the most holy feet. Let silence accept everything that is magical. Although the reflection of the moon's face is filled with wounds with lies in our mouths, betrayed by lust and unstoppable desires. May you soon incarnate so that a million flowers bloom in the heart of the most cursory. The eyes are altered, betraying a million flashes of light from the darkest night. The most beautiful gems are buried in mud puddles. Even though the sky is still dark. Heavy rain that is redder than all blood. Which surpassed the fangs of the old snake. The endless cycle of the sun throws puzzles about the mysteries of the universe that are never answered. The beginning of all this sorrow in myself. If only you please, transform into a butterfly in my prayer tonight. A pair of wings that burned like a fire of longing in my heart. Who suddenly fidgeted and flew into your eyes. Then descend on the branch of the Khuldi tree, before breaking into my tears. Suppose tonight, in my prayer, you incarnate like a thunderous storm. Like the sound of noisy thunder. The footsteps stepped hurriedly on the foggy road. Infiltrate the gaps of our thoughts and feelings. Shackle our arms, knees and breath. If only, in my prayer tonight you will be transformed into murky tears. Who trembled, even though it would patiently take care of my sadness. The pain that somehow healed my soul. Beliefs that keep mysteries for my deepest secrets, which you endlessly hum, in order to be a comfort for my sad life. My dear. Lady of my heart. My love. My soul. Bless me with all your generosity. With your mercy, with your endless love. With your infinite anger.

He smiles. I sit a few feet away and watch as he unpacks the linen bag. “Torin packed this, not Rayna, so who knows what we’ll find.” “Eye of newt and toe of frog,” I mutter. “Wool of bat and tongue of dog.” He smiles, waiting for me to pick up the next verse. “Sorry. That’s all I know.” He props his arms on his knees. “‘Adder’s fork and blind worm’s sting,’” he continues, affecting a macabre tone, “‘lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing, for a charm of powerful trouble, like a hell-broth, boil and bubble.’” “Yum. Breakfast of champions. Is howlet an owl?” “It is indeed.” “And blind worm must be a snake?” “No. Blind worms are lizards with no legs.” “That makes sense. That’s why those were added separately—the lizard legs.” “No respectable brew is complete without them.” “There should be some soft ingredients in there for flavor balance, like butterfly wings and dove’s feathers.” His eyebrows rise. “You’d eat butterfly wings?” “Never. I don’t know why I said that. I love butterflies.” “A symbol of rebirth and resurrection, I might add.” “Subtle, Samrael. Real subtle.” I catch myself smiling. But if he’s good—if he’s really changed—then smiling is fine. Right?

now that i know you exist… how do i not love you. how do i not follow this gravity towards you. now that i feel this, how could i ever not. feel. this. i don't know how i could ever be here in this life and not. love you. i just have no choice. but then… you made a choice. and now i have no choice. and i don't know how… how will i be here in this world with you somewhere else in this world. how. will i learn to pull myself out of this gravity and not feel this anymore now that i have felt. this. how… now that i know you exist… how do i not love you.

you cannot love yourself and apologize for who you are all at once… and you don't need to say “i'm sorry” for the way your perfect atoms find themselves falling into place as the beautiful universe that you are.

you cannot love yourself and apologize for who you are at the same time... and you don't need to say "i'm sorry" for the way your perfect atoms find themselves falling into place as the beautiful universe that you are.

your standards for love are going to make some people uncomfortable. they will try to make you feel like those standards are too high. i think it’s because those standards threaten that person’s comfort zones. what you believe in either challenges how they treat people… or how they've accepted being treated. but none of that is about you. this is your own life, and it will be your own love and your own heart. so don’t ever let anyone make you question your own standards… keep them high.

dream your wild dreams, love, and chase your racing heartbeats, find it and feed it and play in your own fire... and she'll find you. she'll meet you where moonlight meets soul light and everything you both ache for collides, because her fire is drawn to your fire.

but if it’s love, when it asks you to come along, it will not ask you to leave yourself behind… love won’t ask you to be less. of. yourself. it will invite you to become more and more of you, to step into all of you.

—V. V. Ganeshananthan, author of Love Marriage “Compulsive reading. A deliciously timely, whip-smart buoyant dissection of men and women on the rise and the dynamics at play.” —Irenosen Okojie, author of Butterfly Fish “Beneath its high-octane, hi-tech surface, The Startup Wife is a funny, poignant, and supersmart story of ambition, independence, and love—a brilliant portrait of the times we live in.” —Tash Aw, author of Five Star Billionaire “Brilliant… A modern novel about love, startups, technology, ambition, and the future, all wrapped up in one. It’s very clever, but also subtle and very funny too.” —Emma Gannon, author of Olive

take me where everything is soft and wild... give me love like flowers and fire.

Ways To Break This Southern Girl’s Heart after Diane Lato's “Easy Ways To Break My Heart” – give her unsweetened tea. there are no two more terrible words to a southern girl when put together – tell her you're an alabama fan. you've gotta know that she's gonna bleed volunteer orange ‘til the end no matter – tell her you don't like the mountains. her heart has east tennessee sunrises imprinted on it… and she wants to show you every sunlit, treelined, starkissed view – turn down the volume when ‘country girl' by ray lamontagne comes on. papa used to play it for her on the porch, and she's gotta hear every bit of it, every time – you wanna really crush her heart? then ask to meet her daddy. because he isn't in her heart anymore. he was the first one who broke it, and in too many ways, long ago – and if you wanna just completely shatter her into pieces… then try to give her an ordinary love. because she needs love like wildfire. like forever-fire. until every last southern sun sets. till the stars burn out. and to know her heart is finally safe… with you …she needs to know that breaking her heart is the very last thing you would ever want to do.

she needs love like wildfire. like forever-fire. until every last southern sun sets. till the stars burn out. and to know her heart is finally safe… with you.

Ways To Break This Southern Girl’s Heart after Diane Lato's "Easy Ways To Break My Heart" - give her unsweetened tea. there are no two more terrible words to a southern girl when put together - tell her you're an alabama fan. you've gotta know that she's gonna bleed volunteer orange ‘til the end no matter - tell her you don't like the mountains. her heart has east tennessee sunrises imprinted on it... and she wants to show you every sunlit, treelined, starkissed view - turn down the volume when 'country girl' by ray lamontagne comes on. papa used to play it for her on the porch, and she's gotta hear every bit of it, every time - you wanna really crush her heart? then ask to meet her daddy. because he isn't in her heart anymore. he was the first one who broke it, and in too many ways, long ago - and if you wanna just completely shatter her into pieces... then try to give her an ordinary love. because she needs love like wildfire. like forever-fire. until every last southern sun sets. till the stars burn out. and until her heart is finally safe... with you ...she needs to know that breaking her heart is the very last thing you would ever want to do.

you. …the way you give me butterflies and adrenaline highs, and who you are, and how you are, and how you think and speak and feel and exist and move, and there’s this feeling when you look at me… i think this is maybe love… how you actually give a damn about all this mess inside my head.

self-love era… at first, this all felt like loss, like life was taking me away from places i'd felt love. but in this new place, i'm just being asked to learn to feel love… but not need permission from someone or something else to feel it.

Wings of fire It was a strange sight, That brought feelings of excitement and fright, A butterfly with wings of fire, One representing wishes and the other meant to hoist her every desire, There seemed to be no place where she could not go, I had never seen her before, not even long ago, Wherever she went, she set all flowers on fire, Creating blazing gardens of endless desire, Where wishes like pollen dust scattered everywhere, Lifted by the ever rising flames and then dispersed here and there, And wherever it fell, There was no beauty to be felt and no stories to tell, Because the flames turned the dust into a secret alchemy that resembled the inferno of hell, Gardens burned, lands were parched, it was a diabolic sight that no words can explain well, So, wherever the butterfly with wings of fire went, It left trails of fire and devastation, with nature’s will broken and completely bent, The butterfly used to be beautiful once, It loved to fly and freely dance, Until it was caught in a man made drought, Leaving it exhausted and distraught, As its wings stiffened and fell, And it began collapsing into the hell, There somehow she developed wings of fire, To claim her unfulfilled wishes and her every desire, And since then she has been on a rampage, Nature too does not want to contain her in the cage, Because she is avenging its losses, So, now she recklessly all heights and every length crosses, Wherever she goes the world of blazes and fires blooms, With just one prospect, that of gloom and endless dooms, Her desires are infinite, so her wings will never lose their fire now, There is only one way to stop her, via a kiss of love, But who would dare to kiss the wings of fire, Let alone the act, the very thought does scare and tire, Maybe the world, her world and our world will soon be reduced to cinders, And we can only hope that someday she forgives us all, her offenders, But behold the act of providence, Her only means of guidance, The wet drops of rain are soothing her hot and blazing wings, And as her wings regain their natural and colourful shades, she once again sings, Hopefully this spell of beauty lasts longer, And humans and beautiful butterflies will once again learn to live together!

i once loved someone who kept saying… “be smaller. now smaller, still.“ but as small as i made myself, it was never, ever small enough. because my light was never the problem… their own darkness was. so the next time i love, i want to love someone who says… “brighter. now brighter, still… you could never, ever shine too much.

the difference… i'm going to learn from this… and i'm going to grow… and someday i’m going to love someone, and i’m going to lay at their feet more love than they could ever imagine but you… you will never be anything more to anyone than somebody that someone, somewhere, is recovering from.

dream your wild dreams, love, and chase your racing heartbeats…

i love like flowers and fire… i don't know any other way. soft and vulnerable, and wild and burning… with my heart broken. wide. open. and even though he came in like wildfire, he was just. broken. and hardened. and filled with an ugliness raging inside of him and he thought that if he raged hard enough against me that he could rage an ugliness out from inside of me too. then he could say, “see, it's you.” that he could be so hard to love that he could make me feel hard to love too. but i just softly left the room. a graceful exit. and i wrote all my feelings down to shed his hardened residue. and to remind myself of all the ways that there are such beautiful and tender things in me… always.

you have a heart that changes shape when something moves you… so let all of the things you feel so deeply move you. you are fire and wild and art and love and sugar and soul… so let the ache in your heart become a delicate rage that moves you.

you have a heart that changes shape when something moves you... so let all of the things you feel so deeply move you. you are fire and wild and art and love and sugar and soul... so let the ache in your heart become a delicate rage that moves you... rage. delicate rage era. heartbroken but also hellbent.

don't just stay still, go and dream your wild dreams, love, and chase your racing heartbeats… find your spark and feed it, and play in your own fire, and i promise… they'll find you. they'll meet you where moonlight meets soul light and where everything you both ache for collides, because their fire will be drawn to your fire.

passionately chasing my self-love story and becoming the version of me that i fall in love with… and then letting everything else find me there.

my love stories have been devastatingly beautiful but devastatingly heartbreaking, too… things have felt so spiritual and so brutally human all at once. and i think i'm learning to let it all be true, to let myself feel all the things i've so passionately felt, but still keep letting go of what isn't meant to stay.

babygirl, don't run from the shadows under your sweetness; you are layers of dark and light… so try to meet it all with curiosity and give everything your compassion because none of it needs your judgment, and all of it needs your love.

people say they want love, but they go into relationships asking… what can you do for me? what can i get out of you? who can you be for me? that's need. and i just think love is something different. i think it asks different questions. i think it looks for different things. like… what is this feeling with you? what can unfold between us? i want to know who you are.

your standards for love are going to make some people uncomfortable, and they will try to make you feel like your standards are too high, but it’s only because those standards threaten their comfort zones. what you believe in either challenges how they treat people, or how they've accepted being treated. keep them high.

your standards for love are going to make some people uncomfortable. and they will try to make you feel like those standards are too high. i think it’s because those standards threaten their comfort zones. what you believe in either challenges how they treat people… or how they've accepted being treated. but none of that is about you. this is your own life. and it will be your own love and your own heart. so don’t ever let anyone make you question your own standards… keep them high.

some of us have just never known ease. we've known so much fear energy, and we've spent our lives with this feeling… like we're always on the verge of being in trouble for something. it's intangible, but it's always there… and the dream is to close our eyes someday and to just feel safe, to feel held by a universe that loves us.

may we hold on to the promises our souls make… i want to remember the promises my soul made before i came here… that i am here to learn the lessons but not get so lost in them that i can't heal and grow from them. and to take in the texture of earth and the taste of skin… but hold the memory that i am so much more than the heavy weight of being human. that i will trust my journey, even in the darkest corners when nothing feels like a way out… because my soul knows that there is always a way out. and while i’ll know that i am here to learn to love them and fall in love with them… let me never, ever forget that i am here to learn to love me and fall in love with me, too.

i promise, once you learn to love who you are, it won’t hurt anymore… all of this pain from the one who didn't love you. you will love you, so it just won’t matter anymore.

a love language… love me for the way i'm a wildflower, and then come closer and love me like wildfire.

that moment right before something wild and beautiful is about to happen… it's that moment in a song right before the drop… you get pulled into the way it holds your breath, and then the music takes over you like you're high on soul-driven adrenaline / or that feeling right before a kiss, there's that universe that only the two of you exist in… and then the kiss takes over your whole body like some kind of love-flavored spark of heaven / it's the feeling of the let-go before the give-in / the suspension right before the collision / it's when we hand our head over to our heart and let something made of magic find its way in what if we could live our lives in more of that feeling, just letting go of the need to control it all… maybe we could feel a little more trust in the universe then… and maybe even something wild and beautiful could happen.

and every time they try to make you feel unworthy… just go towards yourself. choose to love yourself more. and build such an unshakable bond with your worth that there’s just nothing anyone can ever do to take you away from it.

i think, sometimes… we confuse a heavy relationship with a deep love. and maybe it's not so easy to know the difference. but i don't think love wants to weigh you down… i think love will let you grow… and breathe into your soul and make you feel alive and free.

your standards for love are going to make some people uncomfortable. they will try to make you feel like those standards are too high. i think it’s because those standards threaten that person’s comfort zones. what you believe in either challenges how they treat people… or how they've accepted being treated. but none of that is about you. this is your own life, and it will be your own love and your own heart. so don’t ever let anyone make you question your own standards… keep them high.

…the way we passionately love someone else should be a way we could love ourselves, too.

some of us just aren't made for how hard the edges are here, for how slow pain moves, or how lost light can get, and how heavy it all can weigh… we're surely not made for how flawed humans love. but while we’re here… we can try to love a little deeper, and burn a little brighter, and maybe, just maybe, we make it a little softer here for someone. – angels and earth

that moment right before something wild and beautiful is about to happen… it's why that girl loves a drop… you get pulled into that moment that holds your breath, and then the music takes you over like you’re high on soul-driven adrenaline / and that feeling right before a kiss… there's that universe that only the two of you exist in… and then the kiss takes over your whole body like some kind of love-flavored mescaline / it's the let-go before the give-in / the suspension before the collision / when we hand our head over to our heart and let something made of magic find its way in …she likes the way that feels… that moment right before something wild and beautiful is about to happen.

Advice to Myself from Chelsea to Chelsea Be reckless when it matters most. Messy incomplete. Belly laugh. Love language. Be butterfly stroke in a pool of freestylers. Fast & loose. You don’t need all the right moves all the time. You just need limbs wild. Be equator. Lava. Ocean floor, the neon of plankton. Be unexpected. The rope they lower to save the other bodies. Be your whole body. Every hiccup & out of place. Elastic girl. Be stretch moldable. Be funk flexible. Free fashionable. Go on. Be hair natural. Try & do anything, woman. What brave acts like on your hips. Be cocky at school. Have a fresh mouth. Don’t let them tell you what’s prim & proper. Not your ladylike. Don’t be their ladylike. Their dress-up girl. Not their pretty. Don’t be their bottled. Saturated. Dyed. Squeezed. SPANXed. Be gilded. Gold. Papyrus. A parakeet’s balk & flaunt. Show up uninvited. Know what naked feels like. Get the sweetness. Be the woman you love. Be tight rope & expanse. Stay hungry. Be a mouth that needs to get fed. Ask for it. Stay alert—lively—alive & unfettered. Full on it all. Say yes when it matters. Be dragonfish. Set all the fires. Be all the woman they warned you against being. Be her anyway.

i think you have to chase it. that thing that tells you... keep. going. that there are wilder sunsets and more colors to know. that there are still answers for what's pulling at you. that the emptiness and heartbreak aren't where love will leave you because somewhere there is a lover who will kiss you like you have poetry and addiction on your lips and who needs your touch and taste like mercy on their soul. and there are all those virgin, unfelt things in you; still untouched and tender and unfolding. so you have to keep searching. for all that soul stuff. until your intangible aches are in the flesh, and that fire within you is spilling all around you... i think you have to keep going.

artists and lovers... maybe, you'll lose a little sleep and the sanity will waver… but you'll trade it for the dreams. for the bleeding of the colors and the escape from time. and maybe the peace will take turns with the chaos, but this love will touch. taste. feel. like fire… and your soul will stir and your heart will race and the art will breathe and the awakenings will come again and again. and just. the existence of them… who they are… how they are… it will create all those hurricanes that you feel in your chest walls. and that's how you'll know. because if they are for you… you'll feel it in your chest walls.

we are not halves of each other, we come here to love the whole of one another

the kind of love that shifts you. and stirs you. and awakens you. and inspires you. and blooms wild and burns bright inside of you… and for you… and through you. a visceral thing that you touch and taste and feel in your senses, in your being, in your soul… in your everything. a knowing. beyond what you understand in your head, a knowing that you feel in your heart… one that you feel in your chest walls.

wolves and lovers… wolves and lovers, restless and running wild, we need more than an ordinary love and a tamed life because some aches are made of everything. craving. everything. from the soul-deep to being tangled up in heartbeats and bite marks and body heat… driven by instincts and drunk on moonlight, we need a life made of things we can chew on, and nights where we find ourselves when we lose a little sleep and we feel the blood in our veins and the passion in our chests like kerosene… so i'll go with you, if you'll come with me… and we'll burn… we'll run… we'll love.

when i get close, and when i let walls fall… i become a wild mess. and i get fully disarmed. i just wildflower open… soft. vulnerable. and i become such an easy mark for the way that forever is such a pretty word off the corner of your smile… and god, how it feels like the sweetest. thing. and i swear it… that stars shine brighter, and skin feels even softer, and songs sink in a little deeper, and the words are the sweetest. sugar. and they mean ten times, a hundred times, all the times more… and i feel it all like lightning and soul-imprint in my marrow. and it's beautiful. and it's terrifying. because my safe space… is in the wild open, where there's growing space and soul-searching space, and where my fire is bright and my wings are wide and my breathing is all its own and i can always feel the way my heart beats on its own… with me over here. and you over there. and i don't know if my heart will ever settle it… the way everything is more beautiful when i'm in love, but i feel so much stronger when i'm not.

and you ask… how will i know it's him when he comes along? i'll know it's him by the way he walks in wearing respect like a nice suit, and holding that take. it. slow. magic. with his self-love, self-required, just radiating liberation from old men’s tales, and because… before he lets me love him, it will matter that i love myself.

from over here, love looks so sweet. but… so. terrifying. because i don't yet know how. how to be so close to someone and not crumble into a wild mess of love where i lose me. the last time i got close… my god, how i lost me. so much that i could barely feel me. or hear me. and it's the deepest ache i've ever known when i can't feel me. so i'm still learning… how not to dim and quiet and run and hide and tame me. how to hold my own fire even when my heart catches fire. how to hold on so tight to my own depths that even when i'm tangled deep in you… i'm still always mine.

your standards for love are going to make some people uncomfortable. they will try to make you feel like those standards are too high. i think it’s because those standards threaten their comfort zones. what you believe in either challenges how they treat people… or how they've accepted being treated. but none of that is about you. this is your own life, and it will be your own love and your own heart. so don’t ever let anyone make you question your own standards… keep them high.

save yourself for people who always treat you in such a way that lets you love yourself

he started to come closer, and i said… don’t. just stay. me here. you there. he said… so you don’t want to know me. i said… no, i do. let me know you. me here. you there. not because i don’t want to know you, but, so i can know you as you are. so beautifully untouched by anything you think you need to make yourself to be for me. please. just be. let me love you as you are.

what is beautiful in me and what is tender in me it is always. no matter how hard you tried to make me feel hard to love there are all these beautiful and tender things in me… always.

they all love at such exhausting extremes, suffocated or uninvested, missing the place in between, where love is trusted but breathes …inhale it fully, let it breathe

a love language… i want you to always be able to love you here.

it's ok to take small steps and deep breaths, love… but you also have to learn to take up your own space. and to not say you're sorry when you do. and you're going to be rejected for these wings you're growing and these fires you're starting… for all of this sweet and wild rebellion in you… but these are such. beautiful. things. so you have to keep choosing you. because nothing will matter if you reject you. if it needs you small… you just can't let it hold you still anymore.

a love language… the version of yourself that you are in love with being is who i want to love, too