“When I set out to find my father, I was not being brave.
I was acting out of fear of losing the only parent I ever had.
They may want you to believe I was simply being brave,
But anxiety makes more heroes than history would care to repeat.”
Nikita Gill, Beauty and Bravery

“My fear of being real, of being seen, paralyzes me into silence. I crave the touch and the connection, but I’m not always brave enough to open my hand and reach out. This is the great challenge: to be seen, accepted, and loved, I must first reveal, offer, and surrender.”
Anna White

“Do not romanticize
the bruises beneath my eyes.
Do not compare them
to fields of lilacs
ready to be plucked.
I’m just tired.
I’m just so goddamn tired.
And there’s nothing beautiful
about that. “
Lyra Wen

“It’s funny. I still feel like a little girl. I’m still looking around to check and see what other people are doing to make sure I’m not completely different; I’m still looking around for help, hoping for a quick nudge and a whisper of advice. But I can’t seem to be able to catch anybody’s eye. Nobody else around me seems to be looking around and wondering what to do. Why is it that I feel like I’m the only person who is confused and concerned about the choices I’ve made and where I’m headed?”
Cecelia Ahern, Love, Rosie

“there are maple trees, one, two, three
but wait there’s 5 more, 2 behind the bungalow
and lots in the poetry state forest
I hear target practice from far away, it’s
probably for shooting deer, bears and dinosaurs
but how will we, still alive, socialize
in the winter? wrapped in bear skins
we’ll sit around pot-bellied stoves eating
the lobelias of fear leftover from desperation
last summer’s woodland sunflowers and bee balm
remind us of black cherry eaten in a hurry
while the yard grows in the moonlight
shrinking like a salary or a damaged item
when we return in the morning for a breakfast
of harvest petunias sprinkled with wild marsh mallow”
Bernadette Mayer, The Lobelias of Fear

“The world is a beautiful place
to be born
into
if you don’t mind happiness
not always being
so
very much fun
if you don’t mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because
even in heaven
they don’t sing
all the time
The world is a beautiful place
to be born
into
if you don’t mind some people dying
all the
time
or maybe only starving
some of the
time
which isn’t half so bad
if it isn’t you
Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born
into
if you don't much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned
faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name
Brand society
is prey to
with its men of
distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen
and its various
segregations
and congressional investigations
and other
constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to
Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of
such things as
making the fun scene
and making the
love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs
of having
inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and
smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing
people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving
hats and
dancing
and going
swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the
summer
and just generally
‘living it up’
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the
smiling
mortician”
Lawrence Frelinghetti, The world is a beautiful place