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

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

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

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

..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?

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.

Commit to loving yourself completely. It’s the most radical thing you will do in your lifetime.