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.

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

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.

I’ve written this poem before but always through a window, never through an open door.

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

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

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