05/19/2026
is back! Today I'm sharing "How the Worst Day of My Life Became the Best," by Andrea Gibson, a q***r poet and activist who died of ovarian cancer in 2025. Andrea's fearless, wholehearted embrace of life-limiting illness, and the emotional landscape around it, was truly stunning. I love the question, "What part of your life's record is skipping?"
How the Worst Day of My Life Became the Best
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. Copyright © 2021 Andrea Gibson. Photo by Shaojie on Unsplash.
