We need so much less than we take.
We owe so much more than we give.

4 stars because 50% of this collection was a 3-star read for me (a bit boring and meandering, truthfully), but the other 50% was brilliant and absolutely worthy of 5 stars.

You Better Be Lightning is the first collection I've actually sat down and read of Gibson's, despite being a fan of videos of their poetry readings for many, many years. I love how queer this collection is (especially an entire poem dedicated to queer youths and how downright magical they are), and I love how brave it is.

This isn't always an easy collection to read, and if you're someone who has any need whatsoever for content warnings, I strongly suggest giving them a glance ahead of time (I'll put them below in spoiler tags). While half of these poems didn't work well for me, like I said, the other half hit me as hard as they could and I'm still reeling from how raw some of them were.

✨ Content warnings for:

Spoiler

self-harm, suicidal ideation, homophobia, grief, sexual assault, pedophilia, mental illness, COVID pandemic mentions, climate change, religious trauma

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