easing back into breathing

“you dreamt me out of existence. / you are at once a map to nowhere and everywhere”

“This is how I learned to love. Fleeting; in a panic; a frenzy; watching as the wicked unfolds.”

“You were always so afraid. The loss you lived with was too much. Maybe you were born with skin that stung in the rain. Maybe the light hurt you more than others.”

“You girl, will survive, even when survival is sweat pants and the best of whatever is left in the fridge.”

“And even now in the gathering dark of a late afternoon in December, of one more year stretching between us, I think of you. I remember.”

“The words ‘I am’ are slowly transforming into ‘I used to be’ because every year, the past tense finds a larger house inside the neighborhood of my everyday vernacular.”

“what i like about her is that she blooms whether you water her or not. whether you give her light or not. she exists without your existence.”

“The consistency of hurt is what makes it so comforting.”

“I overcame myself, the sufferer; I carried my own ashes to the mountains; I invented a brighter flame for myself. And behold, then this ghost fled from me.”

“Perhaps the problem is not the intensity of your love but the quality of the people you are loving.”