“
The future is there... looking back at us. Trying to make sense of the fiction we will have become.
”
”
William Gibson (Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant, #1))
“
The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.
”
”
William Gibson
“
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
”
”
William Gibson (Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1))
“
Autumn is the hardest season. The leaves are all falling, and they're falling like
they're falling in love with the ground.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
I said to the sun, ‘Tell me about the big bang.’ The sun said, ‘it hurts to become.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
That night when you kissed me, I left a poem in your mouth, and you can hear some of the lines every time you breathe out.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath
the first time his fingers touched the keys
the same way a soldier holds his breath
the first time his finger clicks the trigger.
We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
A doctor once told me I feel too much. I said, so does god. that’s why you can see the grand canyon from the moon.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
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
“
The trauma said, ‘Don’t write these poems.
Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones.
”
”
Andrea Gibson (The Madness Vase)
“
When you want to know how things really work, study them when they're coming apart.
”
”
William Gibson (Zero History (Blue Ant, #3))
“
My mouth is a fire escape.
The words coming out
don’t care that they are naked.
There is something burning in there.
”
”
Andrea Gibson (The Madness Vase)
“
Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.
”
”
William Gibson
“
Forests may be gorgeous but there is nothing more alive than a tree that learns how to grow in a cemetery.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
But whatever
However
Whenever this ends I want you to know
That right now
I love you forever
”
”
Andrea Gibson (How It Ends)
“
I could never trust anyone who's well adjusted to a sick society.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
Time moves in one direction, memory another. We are that strange species that constructs artifacts intended to counter the natural flow of forgetting.
”
”
William Gibson (Distrust That Particular Flavor)
“
Our hearts beat so loud the neighbours think we’re fucking when I’m just trying to find the nerve to touch your face.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
Because sometimes in life Ken doesn't always choose Barbie.
”
”
Rachel Gibson (See Jane Score (Chinooks Hockey Team #2))
“
To think, a sweater, is made entirely of knots. My stomach could clothe a village.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
Safety isn't always safe. You can find one on every gun.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
How many wars will it take us to learn that only the dead return?
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
I have fallen in love with you, and there is no future for us. That you burst into my life suddenly only a short time ago. That it's too fast, too soon, and you will leave the same way you came into my life. I'll turn around one day and you'll be gone.
”
”
Rachel Gibson (Lola Carlyle Reveals All)
“
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
“
Do you think anger is a sincere emotion or the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain?
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
Your ignorance keeps dismembering every piece of patience I have left.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
I think I'd probably tell you that it's easier to desire and pursue the attention of tens of millions of total strangers than it is to accept the love and loyalty of the people closest to us.
”
”
William Gibson (Idoru (Bridge, #2))
“
The street finds its own uses for things.
”
”
William Gibson
“
Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding...
”
”
William Gibson (Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1))
“
You are not weak just because your heart feels so heavy.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human.
”
”
William Gibson (Count Zero (Sprawl, #2))
“
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
“
I want to try with someone who loves me enough to try with me. I want to grow old looking at the same face every morning. I want to grow old looking at the same face every night at the dinner table. I want to be one of those old couples you see still holding hands and laughing after fifty years of marriage. That's what I want. I want to be someone's forever.
”
”
Rachel Gibson (The Trouble With Valentine's Day (Chinooks Hockey Team, #3))
“
We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
When your heart is broken, you plant seeds in the cracks and pray for rain.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
she's wondering how many women are walking around this world
feeling the tingling of their amputated wings
remembering what it was to fly to sing
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
I can guarantee a haircut will never tell you anything about someone's gender, who they love, or how they fuck.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
You can stand on the cliff of my heart and shout nothing but ‘ugly’ through me. I promise all I will echo back is ‘Beauty, beauty, you have always been beauty
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
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
“
Yesterday i carved your name into the surface of an ice cube
then held it against my chest til it melted into my aching pores
today i cried so hard the neighbors knocked on my door
and asked if I wanted to borrow some sugar.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
One of the most difficult things he'd ever done was turn away and leave her standing in the shadows.
”
”
Rachel Gibson (I'm In No Mood For Love (Writer Friends, #2))
“
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
“
Do you know they found land mines in woman's souls.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
Everyone’s chest
is a living room wall
with awkwardly placed photographs
hiding fist-shaped holes.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
We see in order to move; we move in order to see.
”
”
William Gibson
“
The day I can't pull something useful out of my ass is the day I quit sticking things up my ass.
”
”
Sean Gibson
“
You told me I was the best sex you'd ever had in your life...You couldn't get enough...At one point you were so loud I thought sure hotel security was going to beat down the door.
”
”
Rachel Gibson (I'm In No Mood For Love (Writer Friends, #2))
“
You liked me best when I was like an oil painting; perfectly arranged and silent.
”
”
S.T. Gibson (A Dowry of Blood (A Dowry of Blood, #1))
“
I say, Gibson, we're old friends, and you're a fool if you take anything I say as an offence. Madam your wife and I did not hit it off the only time I ever saw her. I won't say she was silly, but I think one of us was silly, and it was not me.
”
”
Elizabeth Gaskell (Wives and Daughters)
“
Remind me that the most fertile lands were built by the fires of volcanoes.
”
”
Andrea Gibson (The Madness Vase)
“
You did not let me keep my name, so I will strip you of yours. In this world you are what I say you are, and I say you are a ghost, a long night's fever dream that I have finally woken up from. I say you are the smoke-wisp memory of a flame, thawing ice suffering under an early spring sun, a chalk ledger of depts being wiped clean. I say you do not have a name.
”
”
S.T. Gibson (A Dowry of Blood (A Dowry of Blood, #1))
“
When the past is always with you, it may as well be present; and if it is present, it will be future as well.
”
”
William Gibson (Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1))
“
You could have kissed me or slit my throat and either would have made as much sense.
”
”
S.T. Gibson (A Dowry of Blood (A Dowry of Blood, #1))
“
If a tree fell in the forest, and you were the only one there to hear it; if its fall to the ground didn’t make a sound, would you panic in fear that you didn’t exist, or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness?
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
Stand high long enough and your lightning will come.
”
”
William Gibson
“
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
“
You have a heart of gold and I am kneeling in your bloodstream panning for the only thing that has ever felt like home.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
But when I thought I hit bottom, it started hitting back.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
One of the liberating effects of science fiction when I was a teenager was precisely its ability to tune me into all sorts of strange data and make me realize that I wasn’t as totally isolated in perceiving the world as being monstrous and crazy
”
”
William Gibson
“
Remember, your goodness as a person isn’t based on how much you give in relationships, and it isn’t selfish to set limits on people who keep on taking.
”
”
Lindsay C. Gibson (Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents)
“
You want the fairy tale."
"I want a chance at it.
”
”
Rachel Gibson (I'm In No Mood For Love (Writer Friends, #2))
“
Things aren't different. Things are things.
”
”
William Gibson (Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1))
“
The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables.
Said if I could get down thirteen turnips a day
I would be grounded, rooted.
Said my head would not keep flying away
to where the darkness lives.
The psychic told me my heart carries too much weight.
Said for twenty dollars she’d tell me what to do.
I handed her the twenty. She said, “Stop worrying, darling.
You will find a good man soon.”
The first psycho therapist told me to spend
three hours each day sitting in a dark closet
with my eyes closed and ears plugged.
I tried it once but couldn’t stop thinking
about how gay it was to be sitting in the closet.
The yogi told me to stretch everything but the truth.
Said to focus on the out breath. Said everyone finds happiness
when they care more about what they give
than what they get.
The pharmacist said, “Lexapro, Lamicatl, Lithium, Xanax.”
The doctor said an anti-psychotic might help me
forget what the trauma said.
The trauma said, “Don’t write these poems.
Nobody wants to hear you cry
about the grief inside your bones.”
But my bones said, “Tyler Clementi jumped
from the George Washington Bridge
into the Hudson River convinced
he was entirely alone.”
My bones said, “Write the poems.
”
”
Andrea Gibson (The Madness Vase)
“
This is my last love letter to you, though some would call it a confession. I suppose both are a sort of gentle violence, putting down in ink what scorches the air when spoken aloud.
”
”
S.T. Gibson (A Dowry of Blood (A Dowry of Blood, #1))
“
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it.
”
”
William Gibson
“
Would I use the word 'genius' to describe myself? No. 'Alive?' Perhaps. 'Befuddled?' Certainly.
”
”
Sean Gibson
“
He took a duck in the face at 250 knots.
”
”
William Gibson (Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant, #1))
“
Even loneliness, hollow and cold, becomes so familiar it starts to feel like a friend.
”
”
S.T. Gibson (A Dowry of Blood (A Dowry of Blood, #1))
“
Secrets...are the very root of cool.
”
”
William Gibson (Spook Country (Blue Ant, #2))
“
We have no future because our present is too volatile. We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition.
”
”
William Gibson (Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant, #1))
“
Our insanity is not that we see people who aren’t there. It’s that we ignore the ones who are.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
All the speed he took, all the turns he'd taken and the corners he'd cut in Night City, and still he'd see the matrix in his sleep, bright lattices of logic unfolding across that colorless void...
”
”
William Gibson (Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1))
“
You make me want to suck a bruise on you just to kiss it better.
--Luc to Jane--
”
”
Rachel Gibson (See Jane Score (Chinooks Hockey Team #2))
“
Time is money, but also money is money.
”
”
William Gibson (Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant, #1))
“
I’ve written this poem before but always through a window, never through an open door.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
Just because you refuse to acknowledge something, refuse to look at it or think about it, doesn’t mean it’s not there, that it doesn’t affect you and the choices you make in your life.
”
”
Rachel Gibson (Tangled Up In You (Truly Idaho, #2; Writer Friends, #3))
“
You are a mystery I promise I will never try to solve.
”
”
Andrea Gibson (Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns)
“
There must be some Tommy Hilfiger event horizon, beyond which it is impossible to be more derivative, more removed from the source, more devoid of soul.
”
”
William Gibson (Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant, #1))
“
I want you to tell me about every person you’ve ever been in love with.
Tell me why you loved them,
then tell me why they loved you.
Tell me about a day in your life you didn’t think you’d live through.
Tell me what the word home means to you
and tell me in a way that I’ll know your mother’s name
just by the way you describe your bedroom
when you were eight.
See, I want to know the first time you felt the weight of hate,
and if that day still trembles beneath your bones.
Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain
or bounce in the bellies of snow?
And if you were to build a snowman,
would you rip two branches from a tree to build your snowman arms
or would leave your snowman armless
for the sake of being harmless to the tree?
And if you would,
would you notice how that tree weeps for you
because your snowman has no arms to hug you
every time you kiss him on the cheek?
Do you kiss your friends on the cheek?
Do you sleep beside them when they’re sad
even if it makes your lover mad?
Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion
or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain?
See, I wanna know what you think of your first name,
and if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mother’s joy
when she spoke it for the very first time.
I want you to tell me all the ways you’ve been unkind.
Tell me all the ways you’ve been cruel.
Tell me, knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years old
beating up little boys at school.
If you were walking by a chemical plant
where smokestacks were filling the sky with dark black clouds
would you holler “Poison! Poison! Poison!” really loud
or would you whisper
“That cloud looks like a fish,
and that cloud looks like a fairy!”
Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin?
Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea?
And if you don’t believe in miracles, tell me —
how would you explain the miracle of my life to me?
See, I wanna know if you believe in any god
or if you believe in many gods
or better yet
what gods believe in you.
And for all the times that you’ve knelt before the temple of yourself,
have the prayers you asked come true?
And if they didn’t, did you feel denied?
And if you felt denied,
denied by who?
I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror
on a day you’re feeling good.
I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror
on a day you’re feeling bad.
I wanna know the first person who taught you your beauty
could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass.
If you ever reach enlightenment
will you remember how to laugh?
Have you ever been a song?
Would you think less of me
if I told you I’ve lived my entire life a little off-key?
And I’m not nearly as smart as my poetry
I just plagiarize the thoughts of the people around me
who have learned the wisdom of silence.
Do you believe that concrete perpetuates violence?
And if you do —
I want you to tell me of a meadow
where my skateboard will soar.
See, I wanna know more than what you do for a living.
I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving,
and if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes.
I wanna know if you bleed sometimes
from other people’s wounds,
and if you dream sometimes
that this life is just a balloon —
that if you wanted to, you could pop,
but you never would
‘cause you’d never want it to stop.
If a tree fell in the forest
and you were the only one there to hear —
if its fall to the ground didn’t make a sound,
would you panic in fear that you didn’t exist,
or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness?
And lastly, let me ask you this:
If you and I went for a walk
and the entire walk, we didn’t talk —
do you think eventually, we’d… kiss?
No, wait.
That’s asking too much —
after all,
this is only our first date.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
I feel like I should probably ask you to leave. But I don’t really want you to go. I want you to stay, but I know you shouldn’t.
- Hope
”
”
Rachel Gibson (True Confessions (Gospel, Idaho #1))
“
I know this world is far from perfect.
I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon.
I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic.
But every ocean has a shoreline
and every shoreline has a tide
that is constantly returning
to wake the songbirds in our hands,
to wake the music in our bones,
to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that new born river
that has to run through the center of our hearts
to find its way home.
”
”
Andrea Gibson (Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns)
“
I have never met a heavy heart that wasn’t a phone booth with a red cape inside
Some people will never understand the kind of superpower it takes for some people to just walk outside
Some days I know my smile looks like the gutter of a falling house
But my hands are always holding tight to the ripchord of believing
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
And if there’s one thing in this world I’ve ever known for sure, it’s that this girl is gonna crush me like a small bug, leave me so fucking broken there’ll be body bags beneath my eyes from nights I cried so hard the stars died. But I’m like, go ahead. I’m all yours. I would kiss you in the middle of the ocean during a lightning storm, cause I’d rather be left for dead than left to wonder what thunder sounds like.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
Cause I don't wanna be a witness to this life,
I want to be charged and convicted,
ear lifted to her song like a bouquet of yes
because my heart is a parachute that has never opened in time
and I wanna fuck up that pattern,
leave a hole where the cold comes in and fill it every day with her sun,
'cause anyone who has ever sat in lotus for more than a few seconds
knows it takes a hell of a lot more muscle to stay than to go
”
”
Andrea Gibson (Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns)
“
...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
“
Right now there’s a man on the street outside my door
with outstretched hands full of heartbeats no one can hear.
He has cheeks like torn sheet music
every tear-broken crescendo falling on deaf ears.
At his side there’s a boy with eyes like an anthem
no one stands up for.
”
”
Andrea Gibson (Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns)
“
We have no idea, now, of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our grandparents had a future, or thought they did. Fully imagined cultural futures were the luxury of another day, one in which 'now' was of some greater duration. For us, of course, things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures like our grandparents' have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile. ... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition
”
”
William Gibson (Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant, #1))
“
..when a war ends, what does that look like exactly?
do the cells in the body stop detonating themselves?
does the orphanage stop screaming for its mother?
when the sand in the desert has been melted down to glass
and our reflection is not something we can stand to look at
does the white flag make for a perfect blindfold?
yesterday i was told a story
about this little girl in Iraq, six-years-old,
who cannot fall asleep
because when she does
she dreams of nothing
but the day she watched her dog
eat her neighbor's corpse.
if you told her war is over
do you think she can sleep?
”
”
Andrea Gibson (The Madness Vase)
“
Addictions [...] started out like magical pets, pocket monsters. They did extraordinary tricks, showed you things you hadn't seen, were fun. But came, through some gradual dire alchemy, to make decisions for you. Eventually, they were making your most crucial life-decisions. And they were [...] less intelligent than goldfish.
”
”
William Gibson (Zero History (Blue Ant, #3))
“
I want you to tell me about every person you've ever been in love with. Tell me why you loved them, then tell me why they loved you. Tell me about a day in your life you didn't think you’d live through. Tell me what the word “home” means to you and tell me in a way that I’ll know your mothers name just by the way you describe your bed room when you were 8. See, I wanna know the first time you felt the weight of hate and if that day still trembles beneath your bones. Do you kiss your friends on the cheek? Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain? See, I wanna know what you think of your first name. And if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mothers joy when she spoke it for the very first time. I want you tell me all the ways you've been unkind. Tell me all the ways you've been cruel.Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin? Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea? And if you don’t believe in miracles, tell me, how would you explain the miracle of my life to me? And for all the times you've knelt before the temple of yourself, have the prayers you've asked come true? And if they didn't did you feel denied? And if you felt denied, denied by who[m]? I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror on a day you’re feeling good. I wanna know what you see in the mirror on a day a day you’re feeling bad. I wanna know the first person who ever taught you your beauty could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass. If you ever reach enlightenment, will you remember how to laugh? Have you ever been a song? See, I wanna know more than what you do for a living. I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving. And if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes. I wanna know if you bleed sometimes through other people’s wounds. And if you dream sometimes that this life is just a balloon that if you wanted to you could pop—but you never would because you’d never want it to stop.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
She knows, now, absolutely, hearing the white noise that is London, that Damien's theory of jet lag is correct: that her mortal soul is leagues behind her, being reeled in on some ghostly umbilical down the vanished wake of the plane that brought her here, hundreds of thousands of feet above the Atlantic. Souls can't move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage.
”
”
William Gibson (Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant, #1))
“
You healed my heart and taught me that forgiveness is about love. I used to think that any man of mine had to live up to a list of my expectations. I was wrong. Love has no list. You are the pinch in my heart. The catch in my breath. The reason my stomach tumbles and why I lie awake at night just to look at you. And every time I look at you, I know that I want to look at you forever
”
”
Rachel Gibson (Any Man of Mine (Chinooks Hockey Team, #6))
“
I made you into my private Christ, supplicated with my own dark devotions. Nothing existed beyond the range of your exacting gaze, not even me. I was simply a non-entity when you weren't looking at me, an empty vessel waiting to be filled by the sweet water of your attention.
A woman can't live like that, my Lord. No one can. Don't ask me why I did it.
God, forgive me.
Christ, forgive me.
”
”
S.T. Gibson (A Dowry of Blood (A Dowry of Blood, #1))
“
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 (How It Ends)
“
Emotional loneliness is so distressing that a child who experiences it will do whatever is necessary to make some kind of connection with the parent. These children may learn to put other people's needs first as the price of admission to a relationship. Instead of expecting others to provide support or show interest in them, they may take on the role of helping others, convincing everyone that they have few emotional needs of their own. Unfortunately, this tends to create even more loneliness, since covering up your deepest needs prevents genuine connection with others.
”
”
Lindsay C. Gibson (Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents)
“
I still love you like moons love the planets they circle around,
like children love recess bells.
I still hear the sound of you
and think of playgrounds
where outcasts who stutter
beneath braces and bruises and acne
are finally learning that their rich handsome bullies
are never gonna grow up to be happy.
I think of happy when I think of you.
So wherever you are I hope you’re happy,
I really do.
I hope the stars are kissing your cheeks tonight
I hope you finally found a way to quit smoking
I hope your lungs are open and breathing this life
I hope there’s a kite in your hand
that’s flying all the way up to Orion
and you still got a thousand yards of string to let out.
I hope you’re smiling
like God is pulling at the corners of your mouth,
‘cause I might be naked and lonely
shaking branches for bones
but I’m still time zones away
from who I was the day before we met.
You were the first mile
where my heart broke a sweat,
and I wish you were here;
I wish you’d never left;
but mostly I wish you well.
I wish you my very, very best
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
For Jenn
At 12 years old I started bleeding with the moon
and beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts.
I fought with my knuckles white as stars,
and left bruises the shape of Salem.
There are things we know by heart,
and things we don't.
At 13 my friend Jen tried to teach me how to blow rings of smoke.
I'd watch the nicotine rising from her lips like halos,
but I could never make dying beautiful.
The sky didn't fill with colors the night I convinced myself
veins are kite strings you can only cut free.
I suppose I love this life,
in spite of my clenched fist.
I open my palm and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree,
and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers,
and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath
the first time his fingers touched the keys
the same way a soldier holds his breath
the first time his finger clicks the trigger.
We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe.
But my lungs remember
the day my mother took my hand and placed it on her belly
and told me the symphony beneath was my baby sister's heartbeat.
And I knew life would tremble
like the first tear on a prison guard's hardened cheek,
like a prayer on a dying man's lips,
like a vet holding a full bottle of whisky like an empty gun in a war zone…
just take me just take me
Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much,
the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood.
We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways,
but you still have to call it a birthday.
You still have to fall for the prettiest girl on the playground at recess
and hope she knows you can hit a baseball
further than any boy in the whole third grade
and I've been running for home
through the windpipe of a man who sings
while his hands playing washboard with a spoon
on a street corner in New Orleans
where every boarded up window is still painted with the words
We're Coming Back
like a promise to the ocean
that we will always keep moving towards the music,
the way Basquait slept in a cardboard box to be closer to the rain.
Beauty, catch me on your tongue.
Thunder, clap us open.
The pupils in our eyes were not born to hide beneath their desks.
Tonight lay us down to rest in the Arizona desert,
then wake us washing the feet of pregnant women
who climbed across the border with their bellies aimed towards the sun.
I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun.
I know the heartbeat of his mother.
Don't cover your ears, Love.
Don't cover your ears, Life.
There is a boy writing poems in Central Park
and as he writes he moves
and his bones become the bars of Mandela's jail cell stretching apart,
and there are men playing chess in the December cold
who can't tell if the breath rising from the board
is their opponents or their own,
and there's a woman on the stairwell of the subway
swearing she can hear Niagara Falls from her rooftop in Brooklyn,
and I'm remembering how Niagara Falls is a city overrun
with strip malls and traffic and vendors
and one incredibly brave river that makes it all worth it.
Ya'll, I know this world is far from perfect.
I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon.
I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic.
But every ocean has a shoreline
and every shoreline has a tide
that is constantly returning
to wake the songbirds in our hands,
to wake the music in our bones,
to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that brave river
that has to run through the center of our hearts
to find its way home.
”
”
Andrea Gibson
“
My mouth is a fire escape.
The words coming out
don't care that they are naked.
There is something burning in here.
When it burns I hold my own shell to my ear,
listen for the parade from when I was seven,
when the man who played the bagpipes
wore a skirt.
He was from Scotland.
I wanted to move there.
Wanted my spine to be the spine
of an unpublished book,
my faith the first and last page.
The day my ribcage became monkey bars
for a girl hanging on my every word
they said, "You are not allowed to love her."
Tried to take me by the throat
to teach me, "You are not a boy."
I had to unlearn their prison speak,
refusing to make wishes on the star
on the sheriff's chest.
I started taking to the stars in the sky instead.
I said, "Tell me about the big bang."
The stars said, "It hurts to become.
”
”
Andrea Gibson (The Madness Vase)
“
Because they’re so attuned to feelings, internalizers are extremely sensitive to the quality of emotional intimacy in their relationships. Their entire personality longs for emotional spontaneity and intimacy, and they can’t be satisfied with less. Therefore, when they’re raised by immature and emotionally phobic parents, they feel painfully lonely. If there’s anything internalizers have in common, it’s their need to share their inner experience. As children, their need for genuine emotional connection is the central fact of their existence. Nothing hurts their spirit more than being around someone who won’t engage with them emotionally. A blank face kills something in them. They read people closely, looking for signs that they’ve made a connection. This isn’t a social urge, like wanting people to chat with; it’s a powerful hunger to connect heart to heart with a like-minded person who can understand them. They find nothing more exhilarating than clicking with someone who gets them. When they can’t make that kind of connection, they feel emotional loneliness. From
”
”
Lindsay C. Gibson (Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents)
“
I WANT YOU TO TELL ME ABOUT EVERY PERSON YOU’VE EVER BEEN IN LOVE WITH. TELL ME WHY YOU LOVED THEM, THEN TELL ME WHY THEY LOVED YOU. TELL ME ABOUT A DAY IN YOUR LIFE YOU DIDN’T THINK YOU’D LIVE THROUGH. TELL ME WHAT THE WORD “HOME” MEANS TO YOU AND TELL ME IN A WAY THAT I’LL KNOW YOUR MOTHER’S NAME JUST BY THE WAY YOU DESCRIBE YOUR BED ROOM WHEN YOU WERE 8. SEE, I WANNA KNOW THE FIRST TIME YOU FELT THE WEIGHT OF HATE AND IF THAT DAY STILL TREMBLES BENEATH YOUR BONES. DO YOU PREFER TO PLAY IN PUDDLES OF RAIN OR BOUNCE IN THE BELLIES OF SNOW? AND IF YOU WERE TO BUILD A SNOWMAN, WOULD YOU RIP TWO BRANCHES FROM A TREE TO BUILD YOUR SNOWMAN ARMS? OR WOULD YOU LEAVE THE SNOWMAN ARMLESS FOR THE SAKE OF BEING HARMLESS TO THE TREE? AND IF YOU WOULD, WOULD YOU NOTICE HOW THAT TREE WEEPS FOR YOU BECAUSE YOUR SNOWMAN HAS NO ARMS TO HUG YOU EVERY TIME YOU KISS HIM ON THE CHEEK? DO YOU KISS YOUR FRIENDS ON THE CHEEK? DO YOU SLEEP BESIDE THEM WHEN THEY’RE SAD, EVEN IF IT MAKES YOUR LOVER MAD? DO YOU THINK THAT ANGER IS A SINCERE EMOTION OR JUST THE TIMID MOTION OF A FRAGILE HEART TRYING TO BEAT AWAY ITS PAIN? SEE, I WANNA KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF YOUR FIRST NAME. AND IF YOU OFTEN LIE AWAKE AT NIGHT AND IMAGINE YOUR MOTHER’S JOY WHEN SHE SPOKE IT FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME. I WANT YOU TELL ME ALL THE WAYS YOU’VE BEEN UNKIND. TELL ME ALL THE WAYS YOU’VE BEEN CRUEL. SEE, I WANNA KNOW MORE THAN WHAT YOU DO FOR A LIVING. I WANNA KNOW HOW MUCH OF YOUR LIFE YOU SPEND JUST GIVING. AND IF YOU LOVE YOURSELF ENOUGH TO ALSO RECEIVE SOMETIMES. I WANNA KNOW IF YOU BLEED SOMETIMES THROUGH OTHER PEOPLE’S WOUNDS.
”
”
Andrea Gibson