You alone own your story. Do not let another tell it, and if you find yourself in the company of one determined to rewrite your words or own your narrative, fight like hell until you hold it again. There is little in life that is solely ours. Your story is one of those priceless few things. It is beyond precious. The people meant to be In your life will only strengthen your voice, not take it from you.

Poetry has a long, long memory. After our love is long gone, we will still be reading your poems. You will not be the only one whose heart this breaks. Know that we will stand , reading the words written about our love – and we will ache for you The body will remember the way you shifted and sighed as skin met skin and those words will pay tribute to the lines that were composed while we moved through this world together. Because of this, we will never truly forget you.Let us remember.

The less I know – the more the world opens up, wide and waiting.This is how I have come to understand the taste of freedom.I am filled with resistance. But still, I am here.One letter on this screen at a time, I am here. Neck aching and back bent and eyes burning, I am here.This is what it means to show up.This is what it means to trust the calling.This is what It means to write.

You have never been as beautiful as you will be through our eyes. You will have never known that the hard edge of your hipbone was worthy of poetry, or the curve of your smile or the husk of your voice or the caress of your cheek against our own. But if we love you, we will turn you into a poem. You will be made immortal by the power of our words. You can count on this.Let it happen.

If you’re going to love a poet you should know this. Our words are our truths. Our blood hums with verse. We break easily. Our words save us. Our stanzas keep us alive. If we loved you at all, we loved you truly. And you will never leave us but live under our skin and beneath the tips of our fingers and in the ink spill on blank page.Because poetry, like some love, is forever.

These words and these stories can save a life.Who knows – maybe even your own.

Never get too attached to the first draft of anything – this includes writing, art, homes, love. You will revise and revise and revise. We are always in the midst of our own becoming.

Write them all down. The mistakes and the blessings and the places you cracked in two. Write the prayers and the tantrums. The sacred and the profane. The open roads and the closed doors. Nothing is permanent.