I'm only just exploring the poetry of Andrea Gibson now. I knew of them for years but couldn't 'go there'.

Suffice it to say I simply wasn't ready..to bear witness, to their passion, their sobriety, their way with words.

Nor was I ready for the multi dimensional lens through which they had learned to perceive, deconstruct and then piece back together, a more fitting reality that is more honest, more beautiful and more devastating in its truth, than my heart could probably take.

But mostly I wasnt ready for the subject.

Neither what it means to listen to your own heart & it's longings, nor did I believe myself to have the courage it takes to ACT OUT of that knowing… to put skin in the game, stake a claim, burn the old stories, every single one and walk - no, FLY - SOAR, away into a better one.

Where every second thought now is ‘is this my life?’ and you have to keep checking because how did it happen that you got to manna from meh?

So this is me 'trying on' a voice, their voice, as I learn about my own in this new chapter of selfhood, and giving love all the pet names i have for her…

**inspired by Andrea Gibson's poem “GIVE HER” from the collection titled '“lord of the butterflies”, Button Publishing. 2018