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4.58 AVERAGE
4.58 AVERAGE
Andrea Gibson offers up honesty, beauty—and unimaginable optimism. Their poems floor me again and again; I keep coming back to them. So grateful for this poet and the privilege of access to their work.
emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
Andrea Gibson is simply the best (and they can make me do anything they ask, ANYthing: including writing a goodreads review...). I'd been waiting for my signed copy for months, and I was not disappointed: You Better Be Lightning is undoubtedly their best collection so far. It's pure Andrea Gibson... brought to a new level. Yum! it's... love. For sure.
challenging
emotional
reflective
I’ve never been more moved with someone’s words. Andrea’s poems are simultaneously personal and the word’s all our hearts are trying to speak aloud. I couldn’t stop reading until I turned the last page, a glutton for each line. Now I’m going to page one again, a favorite track on repeat. I don’t think it will ever get tiresome.
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
adventurous
challenging
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
slow-paced
Of course beauty hunted me. /
It hunts everyone.
It rains diamonds on Jupiter: /
189 goosebumps.
I sharpened a tiny ax /
so I could split the seconds myself. //
Too much lives in a moment /
to not feed it to the fire in the heart, slow.
There is no escaping the magic now. /
Beauty caught me and never let me go.
I know most people try hard /
to do good and find out too late /
they should have tried softer.
where I come from /
beauty is in the eye of anyone who sees /
what’s missing but can’t stop pointing //
to what’s still there. /
If there’s no definition for love yet - /
I think that’s a good one.
I’m only half /
a second outside the furnace of my rage.
grace /
is super, super slippery. //
There’s literally nothing /
anyone is more likely /
to fall from.
Being right is boring. /
It comforts only the tiniest /
parts of us
Burning to be better is my favorite /
quality on anyone, and you are on fire
you taught me to start breaking /
every promise I have made //
to my pain
sometimes you look like a human /
scribble, like a two-year-old //
has colored you in, /
like you have too many feelings /
to stay inside the lines
we have both showed up //
to kindness tryouts /
with notes from the school nurse /
that said we were too hurt to participate.
I was a terrible juggler. /
I couldn’t figure out how to hold something //
and set it free at the same time. /
So I dropped the ball.
It’s what we do--turn our bodies into museums /
of what was broken.
control, command, escape, delete
at the carousel of clarity /
(otherwise known as fifteen years of therapy)
he was so kind /
you could look into his face //
and know you’d never been late /
for anything.
it’s not the weak who try /
to clock out early. It’s people /
who are desperate to go home.
To make up for lost time, you need /
only to put down the grudge /
you are holding so you can pick up /
the phone
Don’t forget to put your heart in.
I had no idea that holding myself back would be contagious.
It hunts everyone.
It rains diamonds on Jupiter: /
189 goosebumps.
I sharpened a tiny ax /
so I could split the seconds myself. //
Too much lives in a moment /
to not feed it to the fire in the heart, slow.
There is no escaping the magic now. /
Beauty caught me and never let me go.
I know most people try hard /
to do good and find out too late /
they should have tried softer.
where I come from /
beauty is in the eye of anyone who sees /
what’s missing but can’t stop pointing //
to what’s still there. /
If there’s no definition for love yet - /
I think that’s a good one.
I’m only half /
a second outside the furnace of my rage.
grace /
is super, super slippery. //
There’s literally nothing /
anyone is more likely /
to fall from.
Being right is boring. /
It comforts only the tiniest /
parts of us
Burning to be better is my favorite /
quality on anyone, and you are on fire
you taught me to start breaking /
every promise I have made //
to my pain
sometimes you look like a human /
scribble, like a two-year-old //
has colored you in, /
like you have too many feelings /
to stay inside the lines
we have both showed up //
to kindness tryouts /
with notes from the school nurse /
that said we were too hurt to participate.
I was a terrible juggler. /
I couldn’t figure out how to hold something //
and set it free at the same time. /
So I dropped the ball.
It’s what we do--turn our bodies into museums /
of what was broken.
control, command, escape, delete
at the carousel of clarity /
(otherwise known as fifteen years of therapy)
he was so kind /
you could look into his face //
and know you’d never been late /
for anything.
it’s not the weak who try /
to clock out early. It’s people /
who are desperate to go home.
To make up for lost time, you need /
only to put down the grudge /
you are holding so you can pick up /
the phone
Don’t forget to put your heart in.
I had no idea that holding myself back would be contagious.
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced