Andrea Gibson

and etc

Jul 15, 2025

One of my all time favorite poets

Andrea Gibson died this week. I love

all her poems. This one especially.

(Lucky to have met her once.)

^{“When you are trapped in a nightmare, your motivation to awaken will be so much greater than that of someone caught up in a relatively pleasant dream.”
—Eckhart Tolle}

When I realized the storm
was inevitable, I made it
my medicine.

Took two snowflakes
on the tongue in the morning,
two snowflakes on the tongue
by noon.

There were no side effects.
Only sound effects. Reverb
added to my lifespan,
an echo that asked—

What part of your life’s record is skipping?
What wound is on repeat?
Have you done everything you can
to break out of that groove?

By nighttime, I was intimate
with the difference
between tying my laces
and tuning the string section

of my shoes, made a symphony of walking
away from everything that did not
want my life to sing.

Felt a love for myself so consistent
metronomes tried to copyright my heartbeat.

Finally understood I am the conductor
of my own life, and will be even after I die.
I, like the trees, will decide what I become:

Porch swing? Church pew?
An envelope that must be licked to be closed?
Kinky choice, but I didn’t close.

I opened and opened
until I could imagine that the pain
was the sensation of my spirit
not breaking,

that my mind was a parachute
that could always open
in time,

that I could wear my heart
on my sleeve and never grow
out of that shirt.

That every falling leaf is a tiny kite
with a string too small to see, held
by the part of me in charge
of making beauty
out of grief.

From You Better Be Lightning (Button Poetry, 2021) by Andrea Gibson.

PS: Thank you to everyone who wrote asking of my serial novel has more than one part. It does. I’m pasting it here the way it appears in the paper. Crazy layout and formatting but part of the story. I’ll post the link here every week (until the murderer is found.) The mystery is below the sandcastles!!!!