the reckoning… you cannot try to silence a collective pain for so long…

you cannot try to silence
a collective pain for so long and not
expect a collective rage to eventually come.

– butterflies rising

…let me fall madly for me first.

– butterflies rising

beautiful…
the way you say it,
how it feels. too. good.
like quenching thirst on my skin.
how i feel too desperate to hear it…
but how i can’t let it stay because
i’m too unsure to hold it.
so please…
don’t say it.
i want to have heard it enough in
my own voice that i don’t need you to say it…
but, also… so that when you do…
i can let it fall on me without a fight

…let me fall madly for me first.

– butterflies rising

never again
let your heart settle.
never. again.
hold it close to anyone
who doesn’t see
your light-giving,
breath-stealing,
fire-starting magic…
or who sees it all,
and tries to hold you back.
never again.

– butterflies rising

for so long
i thought if i could just become. enough.
that it would be enough for him to be good to me
until i finally realized that wasn’t what he wanted.

he wanted me to be pretty enough
to be beautiful in his eyes,
but my eyes better not be too bright,
and that dress better not be too short,
and those lips better not be too full of lush and love
or talk of too much life for anyone else to see
something beautiful in me…
or heaven forbid,
for me to see something beautiful in myself.
and those dreams i had to find my voice and to spill
all the wild from my heart out into the world…
if i was chasing those dreams,
then i wouldn’t be small enough or sitting still enough as
the sure thing there waiting while he was chasing his.
the more i tried to be. enough. the more i became too much.

because underneath all the ways he needed me to be small,
“enough” is what he felt like he wasn’t.

– butterflies rising

for so long
i thought if i could just become. enough.
that it would be enough for him to be good to me
until i finally realized that wasn’t what he wanted.

because underneath all the ways he needed me to be small,
“enough” is what he felt like he wasn’t.

– butterflies rising

he’s got a little
mischief in his smile
and a little wild in his eyes,
but there’s bleeding in that heart
and a whole lot of passion in that soul,
and he doesn’t just make you feel things…
he lets himself feel it all too.

– the boys who bleed flowers and fire

– butterflies rising