Cloth

We weave our excuses around events.
Thin, poor quality cloth of justification
Poor substitutes for the heavy tribal blankets
Once we wove to wrap our children.
~Phillip Pulfrey

For Lovers and Fighters

Sometimes while I ride the subway I try to look at each person and imagine what they look like to someone who is totally in love with them. I think everyone has had someone look at them that way, whether it was a lover, or a parent, or a friend, whether they know it or not. It’s a wonderful thing, to look at someone to whom I would never be attracted and think about what looking at them feels like to someone who is devouring every part of their image, who has invisible strings that are connected to this person tied to every part of their body. I think this fun pastime is a way of cultivating compassion. It feels good to think about people that way, and to use that part of my mind that I think is traditionally reserved for a tiny portion of people I’ll meet in my life to appreciate the general public.
~Dean Spade

A time for everything

1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
~Ecclesiastes

Rue’s Lullaby

Deep in the meadow, hidden far away
A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray
Forget your woes and let your troubles lay
And when it’s morning again, they’ll wash away
Here it’s safe, here it’s warm
Here the daisies guard you from every harm
Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true
Here is the place where I love you.
― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

Too long of a moment

But more than anything, I wanted to be able to walk away. And it seemed like the one thing I couldn’t do at that moment. Like my feet were glued to the pavement and my lips and tongue suddenly weren’t able to work. It was the moment I knew I had been waiting for, for so long. To tell him just how broken I felt and how empty and wrong everything felt without him next to me. That everything I did reminded me of him and no matter how hard I tried, nothing I did felt completely right. But to declare that I’m so strong and I always knew I would be okay without him holding my hand. That this is what life consists of. Of “I’m sorry’s” and “I miss you’s.” And I knew that we all had to fall at some point, but I wasn’t ready to fall. I tried to leap but had nowhere to land. “I guess I thought you’d come back.” I said with tear filled eyes. and I didn’t want him to see me weak, it was that last thing I wanted to show him. The pit of my stomach lurched forward and I think my heart fell out of my chest. I was never good at making statements but with nothing to lose, I had everything to gain. “what do you want me to say, Liza?” “I want you to say something. I wa- want you to know. I want you to understand and feel everything I felt when you decided to just leave. To just waltz out when the timing felt right for you. Well the timing wasn’t right for me. I woke up every morning with an aching heart. I hoped you would come back and every night when you wouldn’t, it felt like I was missing something. I want you to say you’re sorry, I want you to say you missed me. I want you to say that every minute you were gone that you wished you were here. I want you to say anything.” “babe..” he choked out “but most of all, I want you to know that I don’t need you. Because during the month that you decided not to visit or call or communicate, I found something that you could never give me. I found myself.” And in that instance, my feet swiftly turned me to face the sunset and I walked away from something I wasn’t sure two months ago I would ever turn my back on. I always thought I needed someone to love me. But loving myself was something I needed far more

Imagine the best possible

Close your eyes & imagine the best version of you possible. That’s who you really are, let go of any part of you that doesn’t believe it.

Knowing yourself

If you reveal everything, bare every feeling, ask for understanding, you lose something crucial to your sense of yourself. You need to know things that others don’t know. It’s what no one knows about you that allows you to know yourself.
~–Don DeLillo

Rare and addictive people

Some people bring out the worst in you, others bring out the best, and then there are those remarkably rare, addictive ones who just bring out the most. Of everything. They make you feel so alive that you’d follow them straight into hell, just to keep getting your fix.
~Karen Marie Moning