“And I said, "See, this is passion" You beamed and glowed And it was at me But it was not for me I wilted and you were the live one And as quickly as it came, it left And we both slumped And the little life left in me wanted to go And I spoke to that part Take that little life and leave It can be bigger again But you asked me to stay Saying Help Me over and over And just like you knew I would want to talk about wounded birds You always knew that I always wanted to help So I killed myself and I stayed And we were casualties together Finally connected.” LifePassionRelationshipSacrificePoemTragedyManipulationWounded Book:Handsome Vanilla Source: Handsome Vanilla
“One great thing about the course of life is that there will be a multitude of times when you'll think to yourself, "I wish everything could be just like this, all the time." And you'll think it more than once. And you'll mean it more each time.” LifePhilosophyObservationWishing Book:Handsome Vanilla Source: Handsome Vanilla
“I was fawning I think I thought you were fawning There was life around everything we touched Most of me was very alive And I think I thought you wanted to be” LifeAliveRelationshipPoemBreakdownFawning Book:Handsome Vanilla Source: Handsome Vanilla
“It was important for me to understand that I was only a very small part of her picture. She was a person before she was my grandmother, and that was something I had never precisely considered.” LifeFamilyChildhoodEmpathyMemoryGrandmother Book:Handsome Vanilla Source: Handsome Vanilla
“When I fell, I instantly had my "Oh, That's Why" realization and I would have known not to rollerskate through the house again, even if I had been alone. There is a loss of dignity that a child experiences when they've just suffered the consequences of something they were warned against by the Wiser One while the Wiser One gloats for being wiser, especially when the gloating is packaged as anger. But I was too young to examine gloating or anger or wisdom and she, the mother of a timid child who rarely got hurt, had not had many opportunities to consider the vulnerable state of an injured kid. We were both green and hurt and scared in this new way, together. As an adult, it helps me to view my mom as a singular woman beyond her role in my life, but also, as a child herself who does not, in fact, possess knowledge of all things. Our mother-daughter relationship was this huge, life-altering thing that we are both experiencing for the first time, at the same rate and we don't have answers, we only have things that we're trying out. This was true for my grandmother too; she was learning to be alive for the first time.” LifeMotherFamilyChildhoodEmpathyDaughterMemoryMotherhoodGrandmother Book:Handsome Vanilla Source: Handsome Vanilla
“Maybe if she would have written things down in a notebook; details smaller than her life. Maybe if she would have turned them into a song. Maybe if she had a picture. These are the ways to remember things that your mind doesn't on its own commit. However it chooses what it does to commit. However.” LifeSongMemoryDetailsNotebookRememberingPictures Book:Handsome Vanilla Source: Handsome Vanilla
“He rolled his window back up and turned off the radio, thinking about all the other possible lives that he would never be challenged to live.” LifePrivilegePossibilitiesOther PeopleOther Lives Book:Handsome Vanilla Source: Handsome Vanilla