the relevant

The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all.

I will teach my daughter not to wear her skin like a drunken apology. I will tell her ‘make a home out of your body, live in yourself, do not let people turn you into a regret, do not justify yourself. If you are a disaster it is not forever, if you are a disaster you are the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen. Do not deconstruct from the inside out, you belong here, you belong here, not because you are lovely, but because you are more than that.

I was whole. Then he came around and he was broken, so I took pieces of me to help him become whole again but he threw them on the ground and went right back to the person who broke him.

This is to say, I bit the serpent’s head clean off its body. I danced in the middle of a smoke ring and I didn’t think once about the fire that caused it. I let the ashes melt on my tongue like a peppermint. I watched the dove slam its head into the glass door, didn’t flinch once. This is to say, I stopped pretending love was a tangible thing that could run its head into a door. Somebody asked about California and I said, who’s selfish enough to need all that water anyway? Wildfires and earthquakes don’t make for a good story any day. Give me something with substance. This is to say, my heart doesn’t skip a single beat anymore. An eye for an eye, a metaphor for a metaphor. Keep your talons and I’ll keep my claws. You’re greedy and I self-destruct when I’m bored. Give me back the taste of summer, you can keep the snow flurries. This is to say, you’ve got all that water and you still talk about drought. I stopped sleeping with one eye open. Thanks for making strawberries taste bitter. I sent you a postcard and the plane ticket, said, if this is love, I think I’ll pass. This is to say, remember that bridge? I’m burning it.

Your soul is utterly mysterious–but it is intact and generous and understanding. If it can hate it can also forgive. It is abiding. It does not change color, like the chameleon. There is something leonine about it. You can swim in troubled waters and be at peace.