1. Love so hard it feels like anchors opening up your skin from the inside out.
2. Don’t practice knife-throwing unless the target is your ex’s heart.
3. Self-immolation is useless unless you’re able to rise from the ashes like a phoenix after the burning is done.
4. Drive through fields of fog in the early morning in order to understand how sometimes love is blind; turn the radio on full blast in order to understand how every once in awhile, it can be deaf too.
5. Never fall asleep on a stained mattress because the last couple left their sadness and bad luck spilled all over it.
6. Don’t ever force a budding flower apart before it’s due to open. You’ll realize the significance of this once you take a look at your veins, then a second look at the razor.
7. Every New Year, tear your old self from its hinges and leave a new one swinging from them with a freshly-oiled lock.
8. Every time you walk over holy ground, give thanks that you’re not buried beneath it.
9. Dissection comes before resurrection. If you want to be somebody new, you have to pick apart the old parts of yourself and throw away the rotting ones.
10. Climb only the mountains you could lift and carry on your back, until your spine evolves into something worth bearing weight.
11. Have compassion for the racoons that scavenge in the dumpsters behind your house. They’re only looking for something spoiled to love, just like you after the first four lovers.
12. Don’t hold your breath unless you plan on letting it out.
13. Newsprint leaves ink on the hands like your grandparents will leave ripples in the pools of your life. Don’t erase them. They made you.
14. Kiss until the birds fall from the skies, no sooner, no later.
15. Don’t let grief eat at the table. Send it to the backyard instead.
16. Love yourself down to the bone, down to the roof of your mouth. Leave no stone unturned, no cell unwanted. Love down to the blood no matter how fast it boils.
17. When the beaches crust over with salt, let your thirst guide you to the waves. Step under them only with the intention of surfacing. If you drown, you’ll never learn how to float.
18. Only date men that ask for your name before pulling out the condom.
19. When someone you love undoes their veins with a seam ripper, stitch them back up no matter how painful it is to hold the needle.
20. Don’t forget to try thriving before merely surviving.