I Wrote This for You and Only You Read online

  Enjoy your stay.

  THE PURPOSE OF LOVE

  When I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel, you’re the only person that can remind me.

  THE DEARLY DISCARDED

  Late at night, when your brain is tired of thinking of everything else, you will find me there. You cannot throw me far enough away.

  THE TRAIN HIT ME AND I DIDN’T FEEL IT

  You shouldn’t fall asleep on your heart. It’ll go numb.

  THE DESIRE TO LIVE UNDERWATER FOREVER

  If I breathe you in and you breathe me out, I swear we can breathe forever. I swear I’ll find summer in your winter and spring in your autumn and always, hands at the ends of your fingers, arms at the ends of your shoulders and I swear, when we run out of forever, when we run out of air, your name will be the last word that my lungs make air for.

  THE ENDLESS PUNCHLINE

  Great, real, true love should feel like an inside joke that only you and them can laugh at.

  No matter what the world does to either of you.

  THE FOOTSTEPS MADE OF FIRE

  When you bring light, be careful of those who cannot see, who would try to bring you dark.

  THE THINGS WHICH AREN’T LOVE

  Your salary is not love and your word is not love. Your clothes are not love and holding hands is not love. Sex is not love and a kiss is not love. Long letters are not love and a text is not love. Flowers are not love and a box of chocolates is not love. Sunsets are not love and photographs are not love. The stars are not love and a beach under the moonlight is not love. The smell of someone else on your pillow is not love and the feeling of their skin touching your skin is not love. Heart-shaped candy is not love and an overseas holiday is not love. The truth is not love and winning an argument is not love. Warm coffee isn’t love and cheap cards bought from stores are not love. Tears are not love and laughter is not love. A head on a shoulder is not love and messages written at the front of books given as gifts are not love. Apathy is not love and numbness is not love. A pain in your chest is not love and clenching your fist is not love. Rain is not love.

  Only you. Only you, are love.

  THE DAYS BEFORE CHILDHOOD

  Before now, before you’re here, we’re getting the world ready. We’ve softened all the corners. We’ve taken all the chemicals out of everything we’ve ever made and used them to make fireworks to mark your arrival. We’ve invented leaves that fall 20% slower and are 100% more fun to fall into. We made new colours. We made snow. We made summer holidays. We’ve even created something called a “puppy” and a “kitten” and you may choose which one you prefer when you get here. Which is where we are now.

  Before you are born.

  THE WAVES PUT YOU TO SLEEP

  I love you like I love the sea. And I’m ok with drowning.

  THE ECHO INSPECTOR

  “Why am I still here?”

  “You’re not. You’re a ghost.”

  “I thought I left.”

  “You did. You’re always leaving.”

  “Where am I now?”

  “Always here. Never here again.”

  THE GRAND DISTRACTION

  And every day, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling, “This is important! And this is important! And this is important! You need to worry about this! And this! And this!”

  And each day, it’s up to you, to yank your hand back, put it on your heart and say, “No. This is what’s important.”

  THE CLEAREST LENS

  And may you never wish that life would pass with background music in a black and white montage. And may you lust and hunger for every awkward second of real life, in all it’s un-retouched glory.

  THE TRUTH AS IT CURRENTLY STANDS

  You will not remember much from school.

  School is designed to teach you how to respond and listen to authority figures in the event of an emergency. Like if there’s a bomb in a mall or a fire in an office. It can, apparently, take you more than a decade to learn this. These are not the best days of your life. They are still ahead of you. You will fall in love and have your heart broken in many different, new and interesting ways in college or university (if you go) and you will actually learn things, as at this point, people will believe you have a good chance of obeying authority and surviving, in the event of an emergency. If, in your chosen career path, there are award shows that give out more than ten awards in one night or you have to pay someone to actually take the award home to put on your mantlepiece, then those awards are more than likely designed to make young people in their 20’s work very late, for free, for other people. Those people will do their best to convince you that they have value. They don’t. Only the things you do have real, lasting value, not the things you get for the things you do. You will, at some point, realise that no trophy loves you as much as you love it, that it cannot pay your bills (even if it increases your salary slightly) and that it won’t hold your hand tightly as you say your last words on your deathbed. Only people who love you can do that. If you make art to feel better, make sure it eventually makes you feel better. If it doesn’t, stop making it. You will love someone differently, as time passes. If you always expect to feel the same kind of love you felt when you first met someone, you will always be looking for new people to love. Love doesn’t fade. It just changes as it grows. It would be boring if it didn’t. There is no truly “right” way of writing, painting, being or thinking, only things which have happened before. People who tell you differently are assholes, petrified of change, who should be violently ignored. No philosophy, mantra or piece of advice will hold true for every conceivable situation. “The early bird catches the worm” does not apply to minefields. Perfection only exists in poetry and movies, everyone fights occasionally and no sane person is ever completely sure of anything. Nothing is wrong with any of this. Wisdom does not come from age, wisdom comes from doing things. Be very, very careful of people who call themselves wise, artists, poets or gurus. If you eat well, exercise often and drink enough water, you have a good chance of living a long and happy life. The only time you can really be happy, is right now. There is no other moment that exists that is more important than this one. Do not sacrifice this moment in the hopes of a better one. It is easy to remember all these things when they are being said, it is much harder to remember them when you are stuck in traffic or lying in bed worrying about the next day. If you want to move people, simply tell them the truth. Today, it is rarer than it’s ever been.

  THE TREES GROW QUIETLY

  The things you struggle with today are things you choose to struggle with.

  Because you believe that what you want to accomplish, is worth struggling for.

  THE ENDLESS NIGHT AND ALL IT PROMISES

  You can be beautiful and new forever. Give me forever and I’ll prove it.

  THE PAIN UNFELT

  I have told myself you are not allowed to hurt me anymore. That’s what hurts the most.

  THE SPACE BETWEEN OXYGEN AND HYDROGEN

  When the air touches water, it makes a mirror. When I touch you, you do the same.

  THE NOISE AND COLOUR

  When you make eye contact, break

  it immediately. Check the time

  repeatedly. Because it’s easiest to

  be alone in a crowd. And I am more

  alone in a crowd, than I ever am on

  my own.

  THE REASON FOR AIRPORTS

  You can only hurt someone until there’s nothing left to hurt.

  THE REMAINING MIRRORS

  And I hide because there’s more to me than what you see and I’m not sure you’d like the rest. I know that sometimes, I don’t like the rest.

  THE GLASS ATTIC OF MY MIND

  What would you like to tell yourself today, to make yourself feel ok?

  THE LINE BETWEEN MADNESS AND LIFE

  When I’m crazy, you tell me it’s just the chemicals in my brains mixing and unmixing themselves at the wrong time.

  When I’m in
love, you tell me it’s as real as sunshine and we’re greater than just molecules and air.

  So I choose to believe different things, depending on my love. Depending on my chemicals. At the time.

  THE HOUSE WE KEEP MOMENTS IN

  May you do the things you want to and always remember what it felt like when you were doing them.

  THE DEFIANCE OF THE DIFFERENT

  Most importantly, if you can at all avoid it, don’t be normal. Strive, burn and do everything you can to avoid being the industry standard. Even the highest industry standard. Be greater than anything anyone else has ever dreamed of you. Don’t settle for pats on the back, salary increases, a nod-and-a-smile. Instead, rage against the tepidness of the mundane with every fiber of whatever makes you, you. Change this place.

  Please, do that for me.

  THE REMAINING ME

  Even after the entire world

  has taken me apart, there’s

  still a part of me left for you.

  THE CARRINGTON EVENT

  Love proudly. Let it burn anything between you.

  THE DAY WE STOPPED DYING

  You’re wrong.

  The question is not,

  “How many times can your heart be broken?”

  The question is,

  “How many times can it heal?”

  THE MIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE

  I understand that you care. I just sometimes feel that the people who know me best, are people I’ve never met.

  THE PAIN OF EACH OTHER

  I do not understand why you would go out of your way to hurt each other, when life can already hurt so much.

  THE WORLD OF YOUR OWN

  How sad it is to be somewhere else, when you’re here.

  THE ENVY OF A BILLION LITTLE UNIQUE SNOWFLAKES

  I don’t care what people think. I fell in love with you. Not people.

  THE ORDER IN WHICH THINGS ARE DRAWN

  No picture of a person ever feels alive until you draw in the eyes. So open your eyes. Let at least one of us feel alive.

  THE SALTING OF THE EARTH

  You should know that there is something worse than hate and that is unlove.

  Because hate is anger over something lost, hate is passion, hate is misguided, it’s caring for the wrong things but it is still caring.

  But unlove, unlove is to unkiss, to unremember, to unhold, to undream, to undo everything that ever was and leave smooth stone behind in its wake.

  No fire.

  No fury.

  Just, nothing.

  And that is worse than hate.

  THE HIDDEN DEPTHS

  You’ve got to keep looking for them, even after you find them. Otherwise, you lose them.

  THE AIR CARRIES YOU AWAY

  I’ve tried to put you down on paper so many times.

  But you keep getting up.

  THE LIGHT OF FUTURE MEMORIES

  You make me nostalgic for a love that hasn’t even happened yet.

  THE VOICE IN THE BACK OF MY HEART

  When you have nothing left to say to me, say it anyway.

  THE DIFFERENT WAYS I DIE

  And it made me lay awake, thinking of everyone I’ve ever known who died.

  And I hoped that someone would lay awake one night, thinking of me.

  (Don’t worry. I will feel enough for all of you.)

  THE EVENTUAL GHOST

  You have until the hour you die to do everything you’ve ever really wanted to do and say everything you’ve ever really wanted to say. It sounds less fair when you get older.

  THE AGE AT WHICH IT HAPPENS

  One day, you realise that there are some people you’ll never see again. At least, not in the same way.

  THE WAY HOME

  If photographs of you are as close as I can get, then that’s as close as I’ll get.

  If the edge of the land, is as close as I can get, then that’s as close as I’ll get.

  If right up beside you is as close as I can get, then that’s as close as I’ll get.

  I have and always will be, as close as I can get.

  THE IMPORTANCE OF BREAKING THINGS AND PEOPLE

  Just so you know, there are certain people who were put here to break you.

  So you could learn how to pull yourself back together again.

  THE STRANGEST DAYS

  And when I’m far from home and I feel like an alien, trust me, somehow I never left you.

  THE TRUTH IS DIFFERENT EVERY DAY

  You keep trying to tell the truth about who you are but you keep changing, every time someone listens.

  THE BEAUTIFUL TRAP

  If you open up too much, people can fall in and hurt themselves.

  THE WORDS ARE ALL IN LANGUAGES I DO NOT SPEAK

  And yet, when you get here, you are not given instructions. No one tells you that heart A is meant to slot into heart B. There are no diagrams about how you are meant to live each day or directions on how to assemble some semblance of happiness. You are not even told what colours to paint your feelings or, given a purpose and a reason for your life.

  You have to make all of it up. You have to make all of it, yourself.

  THE BROKEN ICE IN YOUR WAKE

  I have a list in my head of all the feelings I still want to feel before I die. And you have ticked so many things off that list.

  THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN US ARE THE SAME

  If you’re like me, then I know you’re trying. And I want you to know that if I ever stop, I’d want you to carry on.

  THE RELATIVE PHENOMENA

  I would do my taxes. Fill out insurance forms.

  Count grains of rice in a bag.

  Whatever made time pass the slowest with you.

  THE STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES

  No matter how hard you try, you will never be stranger than what the world considers normal.

  THE THINGS WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE

  Just so you know, I don’t. And I refuse to care.

  THE GRINNING FOOL

  Each night, somewhere out there, people go to bed, petrified that I might be happy as I am.

  And I wake up each day and make their worst fears come true.

  PS.

  I hope you’re happy.

  THE VIOLENT PEACE

  You kill death every day that you live.

  And I do my best to murder hate whenever I have the chance to love.

  THE DAY YOU SHOT ME IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD

  The sun rose like it does on any other day, on the day you shot me in the back of the head.

  I’d just made coffee and you’d come back from doing the groceries and I asked if you wanted some without turning my head to look at you, on the day you shot me in the back of the head.

  And I hit the floor so slowly and so hard and without any real warning, on the day you shot me in the back of the head.

  I knew we’d had our differences and our silences but I didn’t expect it to end like this, on the day you shot me in the back of the head.

  I thought there’d be more time, on the day you shot me in the back of the head.

  If I was still alive at that point, I imagine I’d smell cordite and sulphur filling the room and hear the echoes bouncing off the walls, on the day you shot me in the back of the head.