you are allowed to be lovely
and important,
to speak up, and out, and convicted
from the same mouth that tends
to love and cradles lilies
it’s stunning when you let
why you’re here spill out of you
– butterflies rising
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sometimes,
love people easy
like fine, light rain
be there
but with breathing room
and growing space
asking for nothing
but the glow in their skin
– butterflies rising
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i’ve been held
by rough hands…
and i’m still healing.
to let a good man, be a good man,
it takes a new way…
and i’m still learning.
– recovery
– butterflies rising
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they didn’t take pieces of you…
don’t give the people who hurt you that power
they broke loose, and dislodged,
and extracted pieces of you
that could just no longer stay part of you
and who you’re becoming
so as you’re letting those people go,
be willing to let those pieces go too
…let a new version of you
be uncovered
– butterflies rising
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Ways To Break This Southern Girl’s Heart
after Diane Lato’s “Easy Ways To Break My Heart”
– give her unsweetened tea. there are no two more terrible words to a southern girl when put together
– tell her you’re an alabama fan. you’ve gotta know that she’s gonna bleed volunteer orange ‘til the end no matter
– tell her you don’t like the mountains. her heart has east tennessee sunrises imprinted on it… and she wants to show you every sunlit, treelined, starkissed view
– turn down the volume when ‘country girl’ by ray lamontagne comes on. papa used to play it for her on the porch, and she’s gotta hear every bit of it, every time
– you wanna really crush her heart? then ask to meet her daddy. because he isn’t in her heart anymore. he was the first one who broke it, and in too many ways, long ago
– and if you wanna just completely shatter her into pieces… then try to give her an ordinary love. because she needs love like wildfire. like forever-fire. until every last southern sun sets. till the stars burn out. and to know her heart is finally safe… with you
…she needs to know that breaking her heart is the very last thing you would ever want to do.
– butterflies rising
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we cannot curse the sky
if we stay and break bread
with boys
and their troubles
while men full of mountains and moons
are waiting with stories of
how far they’ve come
– butterflies rising
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…maybe it’s brutal when you have to let it fall from your hands, but god, how beautiful it feels while you’re holding it.
– butterflies rising
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maybe
it tangles with chaos
and loses hold of safe and sane…
but that kind of love will be like wildfire.
and the way they touch you
will feel like wildfire.
and your heart…
it will take everything in like it’s on fire.
and it may be heavy on your soul when it breaks you,
but only because you burned so deep for it.
maybe it’s brutal when you have to let it
fall from your hands,
but god, how beautiful it feels
while you’re holding it.
– butterflies rising
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i’ve learned to
be gentle with that part of
me that takes it in so deeply
and holds on to it for far too long,
that’s also the part of me that loves
like an awakening and knows what it’s like
to trace a soul in my fingertips
– butterflies rising
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