I Will Keep It Safe
Yesterday, Andrea Gibson died. They were nothing short of brilliant—both as a poet and a person. And while I didn’t know them personally, their poetry has been rooted in my heart for ages.
Gibson is someone who confronted the ache and made it beautiful. Who looked at pain and didn’t try to pretty it up, but showed kindness. A reminder that sometimes, softness is a superpower. They were a heartbeat that flinched, but still beat—always looking at the world from a lens that was able to refocus and refocus and refocus. What a gift that is, to be able to reconfigure.
I found their work ages ago through a mutual friend, Marty McConnell—also a brilliant poet. It sounds like an exaggeration to say their work saved me in ways I didn’t understand at the time—the way finding the right book can pull you out of a dark space. Or remind you of beauty. Or love—love in all its fucking splendor. Soft and keening at the same time.
When I read Gibson’s work, it was like being seen and being found, the kind of recognition that wasn’t quite like having a mirror held up—but that felt like lightning and a lighthouse. Both illumination and safety. Both secret and truth—the meeting space where the two things are the same thing.
When I stumbled across “Bone Burying,” that last stanza—that is how I love. How I strive to love. Both shield and sword, both softness and force of nature. To love is to gather and to keep safe, and I never saw it described that way, until that did. Like I said, bolt of lightning.
Their poem “Royal Heart” left several stanza emblazoned on my heart. I carry these lines with me through every day, not once consenting to set them down:
I’m never gonna wait
that extra twenty minutes
to text you back,
and I’m never gonna play
hard to get
when I know your life
has been hard enough already.
When we all know everyone’s life
has been hard enough already
Because that is me. I am earnest and messy and I don’t believe in holding back. I don’t play games, and I give my attention to those who deserve it—and I do it on purpose. My attention is never an accident. Neither is my affection. I love as much as you’ll let me:
Just to be clear
I don’t want to get out
without a broken heart.
I intend to leave this life
so shattered
there’s gonna have to be
a thousand separate heavens
for all of my flying parts
The urge and the desire to live life fully, to leave no chance untaken, to invest and shatter, only to make a mosaic out of the pieces. I used to think that the goal was to keep from breaking—to stay whole, to not need to constantly stitch together the pieces of myself. But those lines made me pause and go hmmm. To hurt and to have hurt and then to begin again, to see one more time what’s next, to not see bravery as perfect, but messy—god, yes.
I could go on and on and on about Gibson’s work. I could take endlessly about the lines and stanzas that made me feel like I wasn’t alone. That someone else had been rooted to this spot. And not only that, but survived. And took their heart and offered it again and again and again—
in this world, where nothing is guaranteed. A reminder that beauty is waiting around every goddamn corner—you’ve just got to get there by whatever means necessary. So, maybe you reach out a hand. So, maybe you look up at the stars. So, maybe you dance in the rain.
Maybe you plant something new today, right now. Maybe you say yes and figure it out later. But whatever you do, know this: you can pull poetry out of the smallest gesture, the briefest moment. You can unweave and weave hope. You can open you hand and your heart—and my god, any chance you get, you should.
None of us get out of this alive, but we owe it to ourselves to live. To fall in love in the ordinary moments. To put joy on the calendar like it’s a goddamn holiday. To find meaning in the mistakes, but not let them become overwhelming. And to lean on each other, to let each other in—because that is why we’re all here, isn’t it?
To keep each other safe. Sometimes, that means writing poetry. Sometimes, that means sending a text just to check in. Sometimes, it means a phone call early in the morning or late at night.
For as long as we are here, we should be here. And be a bit more like Andrea Gibson, when given the chance.
(PS. I didn’t proofread this. Sometimes, it’s hard to read through tears. And sometimes, you have to trust someone will know what you mean.)