Seeing Sound remix w/0 sounds Seeing Sound Remix w/text

We are pressed flowers in heavy books too close to the story to see it is only a story

that we could be nobody’s first choice, that we are too much, or not enough.

Only a story that our spines are wind chimes bound to rust when the storm comes, that we should always duck our heads when the clouds move by, that we should never open the weather in our chests, never break down sobbing in the grocery store when they ask me how I am I want to say fine is the suckiest word. It is the opposite of HERE.

HERE the shovel in my heart is working to unbury my next love’s name. HERE my throat keeps closing around my family’s wilting pulse. HERE my palms are open windows, my lifelines cracked glass from the high note my spirit keeps trying to sing. HERE my lungs are ringing from twelve years of wanting to write poems using only the shift key. What could we shift by saying our tears are the coins we toss into the fountain of our grace? It is only a story that bravery can be measured by a lack of fear. It takes guts to tremble. It takes tremble to love. Sometimes it takes everything I have to offer a park bench to my running mind, to just sit and throw bread to the messenger pigeons.

The message said Stop trying to knuckle your way out of the fog. It is only a story that the fog has to lift for you to find your way home. Only a story that home isn’t HERE in this place where you are most lost. Is it true that our bliss will hold more chandeliers than our grief? Is it true that death is a thief? We are dying, every one of us. Plant that seed in your chest and grow your life wild as 80’s hair. Feather everything til you are full sparrow flocking to the front row of  your own class.

Listen, I have never written fiction, but I have lived it nearly all my life…. the story that my sadness could never be the soup kitchen where I would feed my hungry joy.

Text:�THE STORY Andrea Gibson. Photos: Paige with an I Emily with a y