“To the oppressed with no seat on the table; dreaming of change and better days, I will pull up a chair, and light fires in your name.”

The day I made peace with my pain was the day I was born again.

“Ashes”, we once thought, but the embers in our eyes might have bought us time.

How do you sleep soundly, knowing you traded roses for weeds?

I am a phoenix living in a culture of vultures.

You’re preserved inside of me; cadaversque. I both acquiesce and atrophy because of it.

As if flesh and skin and hands are any match for bullets. As if bones won’t crack in hails of powder and lead. As if rivers of blood are not the direct result of trigger fingers that bend but do not break on “bad days”.

Love me until oblivion paints your portraits on my eyelids, sinking by eons into distance that never separates us.

I don’t know how to put my love down, or to keep holding too much of it.

Your darkness does not scare me, nor will I run from you; like a star, I’m falling for the phases of your moon.

We usually seek the divine in the sky, But religion is best found on the ground. Nature is our true creator.

When I was a child, I used to fear monsters under the bed. I have since learned that most monsters are found within. And they are always worth fighting.

I pressed the dress to my nose, and found what was left of your ghost. It was then that I remembered how to cry.

I was looking for you in all the places our love used to be. When all along I should have been looking for me.

Some days, my mind will still be in prison, but I will live in spite of it. I unlearn how to swim; I trade my gills for lungs and wings.

I would throw down roots with you if I ever had the chance. We’d grow strong in tender shoots, and bloom in burning hands.

Creatives are neither born nor created. They are activated.

Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.

Dogs can bear more cold than human beings, but they do not like cold any better than we do; and when a dog has his choice, he will very gladly stretch himself on a rug before the fire for his afternoon nap.

There is nothing better or more necessary than love.

Prayer and sacrifice can touch souls better than words.

It is better to remain silent than to speak the truth ill-humoredly, and spoil an excellent dish by covering it with bad sauce.

Free enterprise has done more to lift people out of poverty, to help build a strong middle class, to help educate our kids, and to make our lives better than all the programs of government combined.

I am running for president to help create a better future. A future where everyone who wants a job can find one. Where no senior fears for the security of their retirement. An America where every parent knows that their child will get an education that leads them to a good job and a bright horizon.

Better times are coming.