“This does not have to be a hard life to love. There is not enough time to let it stray too far from my hands.”

Yes, this life is mine, but more often I watch it take place and my hands feel too far away to touch it.

Please come here, but not too close.

Change is not a four letter curse word I once believed it to be.

I’m thinking about how early the spring flower buds rise up from the grass; just barely on winter’s heels. How uncomfortable, how cold the soil must be, still half-frosted, when the roots start to take shape.

My love lives in my cheeks – gives me away by the first smile. all the lines from years spent laughing, warm with extra freckles in the summer; a poker face that doesn’t keep once my knees fold.

I don’t want to be a saint, I want a love I don’t fight alone to keep.

I know I could be an astronomer of this swooning.

If every feeling comes like a wave, I try to decide what kind of coastline I’ll become.

I’m choosing to believe things are getting better again. The give and take of joy, remembering a few days of ache does not mean forever.

Meet me where happiness doesn’t feel like a false spring.

Your anger, your sorrow, your fear, are okay to feel through, no matter how big it feels now.

I’ll craft a haven that that cradles every joy and sorrow, but doesn’t hold them to keep.

I never lose pieces of me, I just gain new understanding.

I’d get lost in this green, ferns leaning against the trees, soil stuck to my feet, never dream of finding my way back again.

There will be a time where this hurts less and it will not mean it didn’t matter. It means that in the face of feeling something precious slip in my hands, I will always find a way back to myself.

Some mornings, I like to live like a secret; wake as quietly as I can, slip out of bed without so much as a wrinkle.

We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.

God, I want to see You. God, I want to hear You. God, I want to know You. God, I want to follow hard after You. And even before I know what I will face today, I say yes to You.

After every storm, if you look hard enough, a rainbow appears.

General rules will bear hard on particular cases.

It seems to me, sorry seems to be the hardest word.

It’s hard – some people get inspired by a feeling, but I’m mostly inspired by melodies.

Break-ups are hard for anybody, but it’s particularly tough when it’s being documented and you see the person’s picture everywhere. Most people don’t have that added problem when they break up with someone.

If one sticks too rigidly to one’s principles, one would hardly see anybody.