“My head screamed. I want to make them burn the way they did to me. My heart cried that’s not who you are.”

The irony of crashing into me is I will show you what safety looks like.

The truth is your skin was my skin and shedding you is not an easy process.

Look how wildflowers bloom from your skin. So why hold back those tears when your soil needs them?

Don’t strive to become more. Strive to become whole.

You were so gentle with my messy burdens, my tender wounds and the cracks in my broken soul that I became gentle with them, too.

I am mystic bones and a curious heart. Pain and joy and stardust skin. A sacred soul container. Time and space and matter and illusion. Expansion and contraction. A breathing universe.

I can feel hope beginning to sprout from all parts of me that were once punctured.

Choose to soften. Again and again and again. Despite, despite, despite.

Those who are unkind to themselves will not appreciate your kindness. Do it anyway.

I know our bodies were engagement in the act of sex. But did you hear how loudly our souls were making music?

Glass can shatter, yet still be created into nothing short of art. And so can you.

It is a paradox, you see the act of giving is what fills you.

It’s time for that spark that twinkles inside your stomach to become a roaring forest fire.

I have died and rebirth a million times inside this body, and I have met a million people because of it.

Take refuge in your own arms. Collapse into the protection of your own body. It’s the safest home you will ever know.

We remained youthful never aging a single second because we promised each other that we wouldn’t.

I think I’ll always remember your birthday and the way you took your coffee because they’ll forever be pieces of you I cannot burn.

We all show our true colors eventually – mine is dark and firesome red. I bet I burned you. I don’t expect to see you soon.

There is light in you that only burns wild when its free. And if you want to be free, truly free, you will have to let go of the notion that you were meant to make everyone happy.

Love is the burning point of life, and since all life is sorrowful, so is love. The stronger the love, the more the pain. Love itself is pain, you might say -the pain of being truly alive.

And as I gave up the fight to leave the forever in my heart behind, I made friends within the hellfire beast that will always burn a little too close whilst you remain out of reach.

I was born to a dad who was born in the South Bronx while the Bronx was burning, while landlords were committing arson to their own buildings.

I met you the way a fast car meets a tree. The slightest slip sent me careening into you. Half-conscious I remained at the scene, bones broken, blood spilled, fire burning.

Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.