“It’s not a race, it’s a marathon”-my guides

talk to me through friendships

when the question arises, I pause and remain silent.

1.  Hope that the silence is comfortable between strangers 

2.  Remind anyone who asks me about love, I have enough to share but not to those who are depleted of it. I took too long/ 

to refill/ to overflow.

4.  Embody and embrace that I am already in love, with/ self/ sky /these flaws /and my metamorphosis 

5.  Remind the stranger I am here to take up space, to be too much, to be enough in the intensity of myself

6.  Open my hands, uncurl my fingers, lacing them loosely into hope

7.  Move out of the home I built in hopelessness knowing I have never been alone 

8.  Take the first steps down an unknowing road and know I am the light leading the way 

9.  Know you never left in the first place

-Lysz Flo