Andrea Gibson Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

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

If love did not exist, I would be so goddamn sane. — Andrea Gibson

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

Forests may be gorgeous but there is nothing more alive than a tree that learns how to grow in a cemetery. — Andrea Gibson

When they ask why we stayed together for so long I say, I don't know. I just know that we cried at the exact same time in every movie. I know we blushed everyday for the first two years. I know I always stole the covers and she never woke me up. I know the exact look on her face, the first night she used my toothbrush. The next day, I brushed my teeth like thirtysome times, 'cause I didn't want to let her go. You have to understand when it hurt to love her, it hurt the way the light hurts your eyes in the middle of the night, but I had to see, even through the ruin, if what we were burying were seeds. There were so many plants in our house, you could rake the leaves even through that winter when I was trying to make angels in the snow of her cold shoulder. She was still leaving love notes in my suitcase; I'd always find them. — Andrea Gibson

In your arms I forget what the yarn knows of sweaters. I forget how to hold myself together. So if I unfold now like a love letter tell me you'll write back soon. Tell me you'll still come untethered. — Andrea Gibson

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'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

Commit to loving yourself completely. It's the most radical thing you will do in your lifetime. — Andrea Gibson

My heart is still a leather jacket I am waiting to give to someone sweet. — Andrea Gibson

The holy have done more damage to this world than the devil ever could. — Andrea Gibson

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

We were the letters sent to the wrong address,
but opened anyway. — Andrea Gibson

We have all fought for our lives
more than we know,
survived our own questions. — Andrea Gibson

Sometimes the most healing thing to do is remind ourselves over and over and over, other people feel this too. — Andrea Gibson

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

I wish for a heart you can see straight through, for a voice that glows in the dark, and a few really good friends to say, That's the way to go. — Andrea Gibson

Every lover is a storm chaser.
Every good heart has lost its roof. — Andrea Gibson

I have always been comfortable weathering the storm.
I'd like to get more comfortable weathering the sunny day. — Andrea Gibson

This is my body. It is no one's but mine. — Andrea Gibson

I'm not lookin' for someone who can save me. Life rafts might keep you afloat but they rarely get you anywhere and I've got places I wanna go. So break me in two, peel back my rib cage and cover every page of my heart with love poems you will burn someday. — Andrea Gibson

When your heart is broken, you plant seeds in the cracks and pray for rain. — Andrea Gibson

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

Our insanity is not that we see people who aren't there. It's that we ignore the ones who are. — Andrea Gibson

Yes, I like girls; Yes, I like boys; I like boys who like boys; I like girls who wear toys and girls who don't; I like girls who don't call themselves girls; Crew cuts or curls or that really bad hair phase in between. — Andrea Gibson

Know you belong here. You belong here and everything you feel is okay. — Andrea Gibson

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

Hey, are you a boy or a - never mind, can I have a push on the swing? And some day, y'all, when we grow up, it's all gonna be that simple. — Andrea Gibson

Fear is only a verb if you let it be. Don't you dare let go of my hand! — Andrea Gibson

And feelings were always smarter things than thoughts — Andrea Gibson

We all have bullets beneath our skin we pray our lovers won't flinch at when they find. — 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

I write because it is while I'm writing that I feel most connected to why we're here. I write because silence is a heavy weight to carry. I write to remember. I write to heal. I write to let the air in. I write as a practice of listening. — Andrea Gibson

Do you know they found land mines in woman's souls. — Andrea Gibson

And I am wrong more often than I am writing. And even then, I am often wrong. — Andrea Gibson

You can have a cold war with yourself, even in the summertime — Andrea Gibson

I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun; I know the heartbeat of his mother. — Andrea Gibson

They're telling you to blend in,
like you've never seen how a blender works,
like they think you've never seen the mess from the blade. — 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

Your ignorance keeps dismembering every piece of patience I have left. — Andrea Gibson

If you're handing out flashlights in the dark, start handing out stars. — Andrea Gibson

I said to the the sun
'Tell me about the big bang'
The sun said
'It hurts to become — Andrea Gibson

I've written this poem before but always through a window, never through an open door. — Andrea Gibson

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

I could never trust anyone who's well adjusted to a sick society. — Andrea Gibson

What Gods do you believe in? I'll build you a temple of mirrors so you can see them. — Andrea Gibson

Hen 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

I don't believe we're hateful. I think mostly we're just asleep, but the math adds up the same. — Andrea Gibson

Love is like sunshine. Sometimes you have to get burned to know you were there. I want to know that I'm here. — Andrea Gibson

I know now it doesn't matter how well I say grace
if I am sitting at a table where I am offering no bread to eat — Andrea Gibson

None of us are pretty, but our ugly has an alibi. — Andrea Gibson

Love is the only war worth dying for. But every time I say 'please, come back', I feel like I'm trying to find a dirty needle into a haystack. — Andrea Gibson

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

This is my heartbeat like yours, it is a hatchet It can build a house or tear one down. — Andrea Gibson

My mother says it is totally fine
if I blow off steam
as long as I speak in an octave
my kindness can still reach. — Andrea Gibson

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

When 28,000 buildings fall do you know how many walls are no longer there? — Andrea Gibson

How many wars will it take us to learn that only the dead return? — Andrea Gibson

Everyone's chest is a living room wall with awkwardly placed photographs hiding fist-shaped holes. — Andrea Gibson

Rocking Chair
Sad is.
Scared is.
That is all.
The rocking chair I live in rocks like a paper boat. Sometimes I am all words, and no boot.
No muster. No yes. All lag and tired pray,
all miss my hometown. Miss the woods
and the quiet porch and the talking slow.
I caught the snow on my tongue.
Snow angel, I.
My heart a blue lamp.
My mother calling me home.
We cannot be called home enough times in our lives.
Dear lonely,
what is your name?
I will open my front door
and ring it through the streets. — Andrea Gibson

You have to understand when it hurt to love her, it hurt the way the light hurts your eyes in the middle of the night, but I had to see. — 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

Love isn't always magic. Sometimes it's just melting. — Andrea Gibson

We're boxed in and labeled before we're ever able to speak who we believe we are or who we dream we'll become. — Andrea Gibson

So guess what, if I ever have my own team I am picking everyone first even the worst kid and the kid with the stutter like a skipping record 'cause I know all of us are scratched, even if you can't hear it when we speak. — Andrea Gibson

You can find me on the moon waxing and waning. My heart full of petals, every single one begging 'Love me, love me, love me. Whoever I am. Whoever I become.' — Andrea Gibson

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

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

Say this is what the pain made of you:
an open, open, open road,
an avalanche of feel it all. — Andrea Gibson

You are not weak just because your heart feels so heavy. — Andrea Gibson

Someday we will dare
to trade good for true — Andrea Gibson

If you ever reach enlightenment. will you remember how to laugh? — 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

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

Just to be clear I don't want to get out without a broken heart. I indend to leave this life so shattered there's gonna have to be a thousand seperate heavens for all of my flying parts. — Andrea Gibson

And we were Banksy on an overpass in New Orleans spray-painting porch lights on the hurricane. We were welcome mats for the un-forgiven. We never sold our windpipes to make a living. We were the letters sent to the wrong address, but opened anyway. We opened anyway. — 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

My heart is a parachute that has never opened in time. — Andrea Gibson

I like imagining your body is Saturn,
my body ten thousand rings wrapped around you. — Andrea Gibson

We have to create; it is the only thing louder than destruction. — Andrea Gibson

We are all instruments pulling the bows across our own lungs. Windmills, still startling in every storm. Have you ever seen a newborn blinking at the light? I wanna do that every day. I wanna know what the kite called itself when it got away, when it escaped into the night ... — Andrea Gibson

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

Remind me that the most fertile lands were built by the fires of volcanoes. — Andrea Gibson

Listen, I know you run your mouth so your mind can rest. — Andrea Gibson

I thought, "The flowers, save the flowers ... "
I never thought for a second
we wouldn't save the people — Andrea Gibson

But when I thought I hit bottom, it started hitting back. — Andrea Gibson

Some days my heart beats so fast
my ribcage sounds like a fucking railroad track
and my breath is a train I just can't catch. — Andrea Gibson

I am living today as someone I had not yet become yesterday
And tonight I'll only borrow pieces of who I am today
To carry with me to tomorrow — Andrea Gibson

Let me also say I wanna make you sandwhiches,
And soup,
And peanut butter cookies,
Though, the truth is peanutbutter is actually really bad for you 'cause they grow peanuts in old cotton fields to clean the toxins out of the soil,
But hey, you like peanutbutter and I like you! — Andrea Gibson

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

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

You panic button collector. You clock of beautiful ticks. You run out the door if you need to. You flock to the front row of your own class. You feather everything until you know you can always, always shake like a leaf on my family tree and know you belong here. You belong here and everything you feel is okay. Everything you feel is okay. — Andrea Gibson

This is for the times you went through hell so someone else wouldn't have to. — 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

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

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

The trauma said, 'Don't write these poems.
Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones. — Andrea Gibson