I Wrote This for You and Only You Read online

  It was a balloon, rising from a child’s hand.

  THE REMOVAL OF ME

  I know what you feel, when you’ve got nothing left to feel.

  THE PLACE I DO NOT REST

  Dress your heart and mind in what you love, fill your eyes with wonder and chase the things that inspire and delight you.

  For in you, is where I still live.

  THE DESPERATE AND CONFUSED

  Even if you write down everything that’s ever crossed your heart, there will still come a day when none of your words can explain how you feel.

  THE GLARING WHITE BEYOND HEARTBREAK

  Beyond heartbreak, lies soulbreak, which is when you cannot spend time with someone, not because you and them have chosen to part ways, but because they no longer inhabit the Earth.

  THE SPACE BETWEEN THE LAMPS

  You drive too slowly down the streets where you once lived but you roll up your windows when you stop at the lights (just in case any of the ghosts try to get in).

  THE SAND REMEMBERS WHERE WE STOOD

  Say good and true things to the water because it will carry us when we become the dust and the dirt of the world.

  Because if the oceans and currents are good to us, we will wash up on the same beach again.

  Because it would be good to be with you again.

  THE STONES MAKE SAND SLOWLY

  If you are lucky, one day you’ll get the chance to have your life defined by how much you loved and were loved by someone else.

  THE MOMENTS YOU HAVE

  You are not what you think about doing tomorrow.

  You are what you start to do, today.

  THE SHAPES LEFT BEHIND

  You should not look for me in the places I once was.

  Look for me in the places I am now. In soft rain.

  On starlit oceans.

  THE RIPPLE IN THE CLOUDS

  The hardest thing to do when you go back underwater, is talk about what the sky was like.

  THE WORLD FALLS AWAY FROM ITSELF

  If you promise that you’ll save the world, people will believe you. And when you don’t, people will forget what you promised.

  THE LANGUAGE BREAKS

  You’ve got such beautiful words but none I can eat, none which block the rain, none which bandage my wounds, none which build a home.

  Nothing beautiful, which did not work, ever became anything more than pretty.

  THE BOMBS DESTROY MORE THAN JUST CITIES

  If you want to make someone cry, make them think of every person who hurt them.

  If you want to destroy someone, make them think of every person who they have hurt.

  THE NERVE ENDINGS SHATTER LIKE GLASS

  It doesn’t hurt because if you keep hurting the same part of you again and again and again, the nerve endings all die. And when that happens, that part of you goes numb. That’s why it doesn’t hurt. Don’t be proud of it.

  THE ACT OF LIVING IS LETHAL

  You forget that even the strongest person to ever live had a weakest day of their life.

  THE AGONY OF BEING OTHER PEOPLE

  I keep wondering, how many people do you need to be, before you can become yourself.

  THE CAMERA IS A BAG FOR MEMORIES

  And when someone takes my picture and they tell me to smile, I still think of you.

  THE TURNING OF THE SPHERE

  “You need to spin the world again.”

  “Why bother? So what if a few more babies are born. So what if there’s heartbreak, pain and pens and doughnuts and washing lines. Who cares if there’s forgetfulness and a summer and wine and clouds with faces and shapes hidden in them. That’s all that happens every time I spin the world. It’s all just a bunch of things that happen. Why bother spinning the world again?”

  “Because pens and babies are worth a little heartbreak and pain. Because everyone in the world deserves every chance they can get to find the things and experiences and people that make them happy. So give all of them another chance. Please, spin the world again.”

  THE NIGHT IS A TUNNEL

  I have told the sky all my loneliest thoughts of you. And all it does is shine starlight back at me. But I guess that’s what makes it such a good listener.

  THE NATURE OF A RIVER IS TO RUN

  When it rains, the river will try and take you away from me.

  Which is why, when it rains, we must hold onto each other, just a little tighter.

  THE SHADOWS ON THE CURTAIN

  Sometimes the most important thing you can say is just,

  “Are you ok?”

  THE TIME KEEPS TWISTING ME

  The seconds take a part of me with them. Hopefully to you.

  THE THINGS I WOULD’VE SAID

  If you’re strong enough to take that blade and draw it across your skin.

  If you’re strong enough to take those pills and swallow them when no one’s home.

  If you’re strong enough to tie that rope and hang it from the ceiling fan.

  If you’re strong enough to jump off that bridge, my friend.

  You are strong enough, to live.

  THE SILVER LUMP IN MY THROAT

  I hope you know how long it takes me to learn to talk again, whenever you make me forget.

  THE SOUND THAT ENDS THE WORLD

  I’m only quiet because I’m worried that if you push me too far, one day I will open my mouth and I will scream so loudly, it will shatter and break the whole world.

  THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PAINT AND BLOOD

  I know you think you define me.

  But each brush stroke thinks it’s important when it’s on the canvas and each brush stroke thinks that it’s the last and that the painting will be done when the brush leaves the canvas again.

  But it isn’t. You are just the shading. You are a dot. And I am the one holding the paintbrush.

  THE WORDS ON A TOMBSTONE

  Do practical things if you want your tombstone to read,

  “They were practical.”

  Do what makes sense if you think it should say,

  “Their life made sense.”

  Do what the world wants if you believe in the epitaph,

  “They did what the world wanted them to do.”

  But if you want it to read,

  “They lived every second they were given

  and touched the sky every chance they had,

  they burned and blazed in all the colours the eye can see

  and left a hole shaped like them in the world

  when they left.”

  Then do something else.

  THE PERSON YOU MEET AT THE END IS YOU

  The universe curves, as does the Earth. And as hard as you try and run away from everything you are, you’ll find yourself where you left yourself when you come home. Just tired.

  Fix yourself before you try and outrun yourself.

  THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE

  “How do you feel?”

  “Cold and lonely. Since the beginning of time, everything’s been moving away from me. That’s what it means to be at the centre. I don’t understand why anyone would want to be me.”

  THE EXPERIENCE BECOMES A STORY

  The horror you face today will become the funny story you tell tomorrow.

  In the end, everything is overcome and a life is lived.

  THE WAY WE’RE MEASURED

  You pour yourself into the thing that measures you and it defines you. And I just hope that one day you find out that you’re fuller when you measure yourself in love and people and moments, instead of things, adoration and money.

  THE EFFICIENCY AND PERFECTION OF THE LOST

  Yet you still value the things you’ve lost the most. Because the things you’ve lost are still perfect in your head. They never rusted. They never broke. They are made of the memories you once had, which only grow rosier and brighter, day by day. They are made of the dreams of how wonderful things could have been and must never suffer the indignity of actually still existing. Of being real.
Of having flaws. Of breaking and deteriorating.

  Only the things you no longer have will always be perfect.

  THE WINTER CHILD

  In bright white snow, when everything sleeps.

  And hope has left you lonely.

  When all you ever remember about summer is how it ended.

  I send hope back to you, wherever you are.

  I hope you remember all the people you still have time to be.

  I hope the little things in your life inspire you to do big things with it.

  I hope you remember that summer comes every year and that the sun, is still sweet.

  I hope you learn to hope again.

  I, still, hope.

  THE STORY CAN NEITHER BE CREATED NOR DESTROYED

  As you fall, remember that you are part of a beautiful story that did not start when you were born.

  Remember that you are the universe exhaling, a breeze waiting to blow across a field of tall grass.

  Remember, you are part of a beautiful story that did not start when you were born.

  As your body cuts through the air, think of only the things that made you smile, the people that made you love, the ideas that made you strong.

  Remember, those things will never happen again but they cannot unhappen.

  Remember, you are part of a beautiful story that did not start when you were born.

  Remember, what you felt can’t ever be taken away.

  Remember, you are part of a beautiful story that did not start when you were born.

  And it will not end when you die.

  Remember.

  THE IMPORTANCE OF CORRECTLY NUMBERING THINGS

  There are more grains of sand in the soles of your shoes than you will be given winters to dream or summers to make those dreams real.

  And there are more stars in the sky than there are grains of sand on Earth.

  We live in a universe so big that a dying star, in the greater scheme of things, is as significant as spilled milk or an unkissed kiss. In an infinite amount of time, everything that can be forgotten, will be forgotten.

  In infinity, spilled milk and dying stars matter the same.

  And if you’re just someone brushing your teeth late at night or you’re a planet breathing your last breath as you disappear into a black hole, everything you do matters just the same. Every breath you take is as important or unimportant as the sun in the sky or the moon in the night.

  Scratching your ear, is a kind of miracle, depending on how you look at it.

  THE COLOURS OF STOLEN SLEEP

  Now I’m awake and you’re here.

  Now I’m dreaming and you’re here.

  Now I have nothing but days.

  Never nights.

  THE WORLD WOULD BE EASIER

  The world would be easier if the homeless were all just lazy and all they needed to do was just get a fucking job.

  The world would be easier if evil were a real thing, instead of just confusion, misunderstanding, miscommunication and misplaced desire.

  The world would be easier if you could just be happy for what you had, while you had it. If you could eat memories like flowers to keep your heart alive.

  The world would be easier if comfort didn’t rest on the backs of the broken, if your swimming pool was dug by soft hands that never worked a day in their life.

  The world would be easier if we all just got rich and famous and we were all each other’s #1 fan.

  The world would be easier if it were an automatic.

  The world would be easier.

  But it isn’t.

  The world is hard because it requires real human effort to make it turn.

  The world is hard because you may wake up today but not tomorrow. And yet no one will accept “fear of death and a futile existence” as a reasonable excuse to miss work.

  The world is hard because you will have to fight for the things you love or worse, fight the things you love.

  The world is hard because the things you love will kill you.

  The world is hard because it was made that way by thousands upon thousands of hard men and no one wants to admit we have no idea why we’re doing the things we’re doing anymore.

  The world is hard because it’s hard to forgive and even harder to forget.

  The world is hard and you should just give up, right now. Just lay down and die. Nothing will ever be easier.

  But, you don’t.

  THE NIGHT HOLDS THE DAY SO SOFTLY

  You own this hand now.

  Because when I close my hand around your hand, I can feel your hand, feeling mine. And it feels the same.

  THE SUN LEAVES THE EARTH

  I am so selfish, so greedy and so spoiled.

  How can I ask for one more day with you, when I’ve already had so many?

  THE BANDAGES ARE MADE OF SHADOWS

  You and I both know, the dark doesn’t make the bruises disappear.

  It just makes them harder to see.

  THE WAITING CHAIR

  If it hurts you, if not being who you want to be kills you inside, just close your eyes and remember,

  “Somewhere else, I’m something else.

  Somewhere else, I’m something else.”

  And soon you will be here.

  Soon, you will be you.

  THE LANGUAGE STRIPPED NAKED

  And I’m sorry I ever learned any words that make you cry.

  I’m still doing my best to learn the ones that make you smile.

  THE DARK WORDS YOU WALK DOWN AT NIGHT

  This is why it hurts the way it hurts.

  You have too many words in your head. There are too many ways to describe the way you feel. You will never have the luxury of a dull ache.

  You must suffer through the intricacy of feeling too much.

  THE MAP OF IMPERFECTIONS

  I am a record of things I was born with.

  These scars are my documentation of the mistakes I’ve made in trying to overcome them.

  I am both the things I’ve done to myself and the things done to me.

  Along these nerve endings, you will find a history of me.

  THE SHIP MADE OF BROKEN PARTS CAN STILL GO ANYWHERE

  You only fix the things you feel deserve to be fixed, as if you’re a special kind of person who doesn’t deserve to sort their own life out because of who they are. Like your brokenness is a symptom of being you.

  “I can let that wait, I don’t need to do this because I don’t deserve to have it done. My life is always only ever incomplete.”

  And yet, no one deserves the full benefit of being you, more than you.

  THE PAST KEEPS GOING AWAY

  After you’re gone, people will forget your name, no matter how important it was, and your face, no matter how pretty it was, and what you said, no matter how clever any of it sounded.

  The things you’ve done will crumble and fade and the places you once loved, will change and be given new names.

  You are only here for one moment and it lasts exactly one lifetime.

  THE CHILD WITH THE INVISIBLE HEAD

  And what still shocks me, is how often the thing that hurts you, looks like the thing that helps you.

  THE SAD SEA WAVES

  When I look at you, I can see the person you used to be drowning in the person you are. And it makes me nostalgic and sad because I know when you look at me, you must see the same thing.

  THE PEACE I WON WHEN I STOPPED FIGHTING

  I’m sorry, but no gun can frighten me and no word can hurt me. No wave can knock me over and no rain can slow me. No night can tire me and no fire can burn me.

  Because I have found the strength to do the things I believe in, and the will to stop doing the things I don’t believe in.

  So I have discovered what it means, to be at peace.

  And you, my friend, will never find a big enough gun.

  THE HEART CAN NOT BE DISCOUNTED

  If they put you back on the shelf, in exchange for someone else, do
n’t worry.

  Someone better’s coming along.

  THE REASON THEY DON’T LISTEN

  There’s no beauty in your truth because there’s no truth in your beauty.

  THE LIMITED OPPORTUNITY

  There are only so many of us born at a time and we are thrown into the world to find each other, to find the other ones who don’t think you’re strange, who understand your jokes, your smile, the way you talk.

  There are only so many of us born at a time and we only have so long to find each other before we die.

  But we have to try.

  THE LAST LAND I STOOD ON

  And my fingers are ships sailing on your skin, slowly drifting and hoping against hope that they fall off the edge of the earth.

  And your heart is nothing but the gravity pulling me towards you.

  THE FIRST DAY ON EARTH

  First, you need to relax. I know it’s not as warm as it once was but you get used to the cold and warmth can be found in the people around you. Secondly, do not get used to crying to get things. Some people never grow out of it. Avoid them. Spend time around people who smile in the face of despair. Learn from them all you can. Everyone is a lesson. A story. A unique and wondrous perspective on the chaos that is human existence. The more people you talk to, the more you understand it. But never speak if you have the opportunity to listen. Especially if you want someone to like you. There’s nothing you can say that’ll endear someone to you as much as really and truly listening to them. You are on day one of a sometimes remarkable, sometimes terrible, sometimes beautiful, strange and always completely unknown journey. Be ok with this. Worrying about what happens next will ruin the surprise. You will meet strange people along the way, some good, some bad. This is a pattern that will more than likely repeat constantly as you grow up. Some things will be good, some things will be bad. Neither will ever last forever. Nothing will stay the same. Appreciate every moment of happiness and remember it when you despair. Hold them close. And when you are happy, remember the moments of despair and think to yourself, “I told you so.” Never let someone else define you. You are your own creation and only you decide how you feel, who you are and what you want. This can be scary at first but it is liberating to truly and utterly embrace your own identity. People who hate you for not being like them are not worth hating back. Please, let go of hate whenever you can. Accept love whenever it is given and give it out freely. It is the most powerful force on earth.