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.

...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.

I am living today as someone I had not yet become yesterday and tonight I will borrow only pieces of who I am today to carry with me to tomorrow.

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

..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?

My mouth is a fire escape. The words coming out don’t care that they are naked. There is something burning in there.

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