southern girl with a wild soul…

she’s got
her daddy’s blue eyes
and her mama’s pretty lips,
and she’ll stay on your mind
with a sugar-sweet kiss,
that southern girl with her wild soul
will leave an imprint on your heart
and make somewhere in tennessee
feel something like home

– butterflies rising

i will not
take care of my fears today.

i will not feed them or tend to them
or give them any space.

and if i do not take care of my fears today…
what i feel tomorrow might be something
a little bit like faith.

– butterflies rising

your standards for love
are going to make some people
uncomfortable, and they will try to make
you feel like your standards are too high,
but it’s only because those standards threaten
their comfort zones.

what you believe in either challenges
how they treat people,
or how they’ve accepted being treated.

keep them high.

– butterflies rising

just because
benevolence
and butterflies
linger on your tongue,
it does not mean
your voice cannot be
a revolution

– butterflies rising

…it’s in the way he walks in
wearing respect like a nice suit

– butterflies rising

and you ask me…
how will i know it’s him
when he comes along?
i’ll know it’s him
by the way he walks in
wearing respect like a nice suit
and holding that
take. it. slow. magic.
with his self-love, self-required,
just radiating liberation from old men’s tales,
and because…
before he lets me love him…
it will matter that i love myself.

– butterflies rising

living, breathing thunderstorms in each other's arms

why would
we ever ask each other
to come out from our corners
of self-safety
and crumble down our walls
for anything that wouldn’t
be as true and deep
and beautifully wild
and as gutted open and as
raging as to be living, breathing
thunderstorms in each other’s arms,
tracing our fingers through starlight…
why would i move
when i’m this. terrified. to move.
so if you’re going to ask me
to shed away my safety
…let it be for everything beautiful
imaginable under god.