The trauma said, ‘Don’t write these poems. Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones.

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

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

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.

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

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