This isn’t me.
THE GRIM ALTERNATIVES
I love no one but you, I have discovered, but you are far away and I am here alone. Then this is my life and maybe, however unlikely, I’ll find my way back there. Or maybe, one day, I’ll settle for second best. And on that same day, hell will freeze over, the sun will burn out and the stars will fall from the sky.
THE PROMISE SLEEP MADE ME
Every bed without you in it, is broken.
THE THEORY IS STILL JUST A THEORY
And if I blink my eyes enough, maybe I will wake up and you will still be there sleeping next to me.
THE TICK-TOCK IN YOUR CHEST
I will hold you so tightly and carefully when I see you again. Like crystal. Or an atom bomb.
THE FRAGMENTS BELONG TOGETHER
Things just break sometimes. Maybe we should blame that third person we became, that personality we shared together. Maybe it’s their fault because you’re a good person and I think I’m a good person too. We just weren’t made for this.
THE WATER FLOWS UPHILL
The heart is a muscle like any other and the best exercise you can do for it is called picking yourself up off the floor.
THE FADING GLOW
What you gave me was a reason. Not an excuse. Because there’s sex, making love and fucking. And then there’s you.
THE TWINS
I like to think that somewhere out there, on a planet exactly like ours, two people exactly like you and me made totally different choices and that, somewhere, we’re still together.
That’s enough for me.
THE EMPTY CLASSROOM
You taught me how to be alone.
And I learned my lesson, in your absence.
THE WORLD IS BETTER BACKWARDS
I never saw you again. You slammed the door as you came in. We yelled at each other about something that just shouldn’t fucking matter but for some reason, it does. It happened. We spoke softly. We were in bed. I told you
“I love you.”
You said the same. We went to movies and parties and friends and ate and drank and made love.
It all ended with my eyes meeting yours for the first time and the sudden, extreme feeling of expectation.
And now, how can I miss what has never existed.
RAIN.
THE ANGEL OF ALMOST
Then I was somewhere else, and it was bright. A voice said
“If you’d carried on practicing that song you almost got right, you would’ve been great. Bigger than the Beatles.”
It continued
“If you’d carried on working on that book you almost finished, it would’ve changed the lives of many, many people.”
Then it said
“If you’d tried to reach the one you loved just a little bit more, when you almost had them, your life would’ve been completely different.”
And I asked
“Is this what happens when I die?”
And the voice said
“Almost.”
THE BEST WAY TO RUN INTO TRAFFIC
It does not count if you believe in yourself when it’s easy to believe in yourself. It does not count if you believe the world can be a better place when the future looks bright. It does not count if you think you’re going to make it when the finish line is right in front of you.
It counts when it’s hard to believe in yourself, when it looks like the world’s going to end and you’ve still got a long way to go.
That’s when it counts. That’s when it matters the most.
THE HOPE OF SYMMETRY
So you look for patterns because that’s what humans do to try and make sense of things. In hope of some divine order. And you look in movies and songs and the things that you read for symbols, points and swirls that match your own. But the only real pattern there is, is the one you make when you hold up a mirror. And reflect.
THE CATWALK IN THE SKY
And it may look to you like I’m just walking through your city with my head held high.
But in my head, I am not in your city.
THE MEDICINE IS THE SICKNESS
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s people who won’t let me in on the freeway.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s having to let people in on the freeway.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s waking up to 50 assholes pretending to be me.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s waking up feeling like an asshole because I yelled at those assholes.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s people who turn the things I say into insipid greeting card messages.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s turning a bunch of ideas into a laundry list.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s that feeling you get when you scratch something new.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s not knowing what’s wrong with someone and all you want to do is make them feel better.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s knowing that my mind naturally gravitates towards the negative and not being able to stop it.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s people who become your friend, to become your friends’ friend.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being really busy and using that as an excuse to ignore your email.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s having to acknowledge that my feelings are my own, no one else’s. And, my responsibility.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s forgetting that and taking the way I feel out on the world.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s people who criticise things, who can’t take criticism.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s going to the same job day-after-day for the same pay.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s not having a job.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s not you.
It’s me.
THE FRAGMENTS OF HOPE
Dear Future You,
Hold on. Please.
Love,
Me.
Dear Current You,
I’m holding on. But it hurts.
Love,
Me.
Dear Past You,
I held on. Thank you.
Love,
Me.
THE REASON THE WILLOW WEEPS
It weeps for you late at night, when sleep does not come easily. It weeps for the one you miss. It weeps for the dreams on the tips of your fingers. It weeps for appointments missed and it weeps for the tears in your pillow. It weeps for the silence and it weeps for the noise. It weeps for formal letters where once, language was spoken as close to your ear as possible. It weeps for betrayal, intended or not. It weeps for the friends you once were. It weeps for the colours faded. It weeps for sunrise. It weeps for a death in the family and it weeps when a baby is born. It weeps for the last time you touched. It weeps for words that can never be taken back. It weeps so hard and so much and so often. So you don’t have to. So you can carry on. It weeps for you. When you have run out of weeping.
THE LACK OF APOLOGIES
No matter how you stack me. No matter how you arrange me. No matter how you look at me. I am still here and I am still the same person made of the same things. I regret nothing.
THE TRUTH BEHIND GLASS MOUNTAINS
This isn’t torture.
Torture happens in small, dark rooms in countries with names you struggle to spell.
This is just mildly unpleasant.
This isn’t heroism.
Heroism happens in churches that are also schools, performed by teachers with no names and no place to stay.
This is just a good deed for the day.
This isn’t loss.
Loss happens on fields filled with poppies, in hospitals buzzing with flies, in distant deserts and late at night when there’s no good reason for the phone to ring.
This is just longing.
This isn’t important.
Important happens on bended knees and is breathed on last brea
ths with hands clutched tight, hearts tighter.
This is just a distraction.
THE FLOWERS OF 3753 CRUITHNE
Truly great people were once called weird so that today, you aren’t called anything.
THE NEED FOR HONESTY AFTER MIDNIGHT
Not the first one in the morning or the one on the TV, the well-meaning phone call on a Monday night one or some you find on the radio — the voice that whispers between your ears before you fall asleep, that’s the one you pay attention to.
THE PLACE SENTENCES GO TO DIE
No one knows where the words come from and if someone tells you that they do, they’re lying.
THE PEOPLE WE COULD BE
Being gifted doesn’t mean you’ve been given something.
It means, you have something to give.
THE INSCRIPTION
This is how I live. This is how I live. This is how I live.
I mumble things under my breath, three times so I’ll remember.
This where I live. This is where I live. This is where I live.
Inside the sun, beneath the burning trees.
This is how I love. This is how I love. This is how I love.
Touching you, in case there comes a time I can’t.
This is where I love. This is where I love. This is where I love.
In the heart of things, on the tips of waves.
This is how I die. This is how I die. This is how I die.
Too fast, not long enough.
This where I die. This is where I die. This is where I die.
Here.
THE WOOD IN TREES
You constantly look for a sign and when it’s given to you and you don’t like the answer, you call it a coincidence. There are no coincidences.
THE RED SKY AT NIGHT
Today, no planes flew into any buildings.
Today, there was no fire falling from the sky.
Today, there were no riots in the streets.
Today, the news was mostly just about famous people.
Today, no shaky footage was recorded of children running from a burning village.
Today, not one person stood in front of a tank.
Today, no one put flowers in the rifle barrels of guns.
Today, you will check your mail.
Today, no shots rang out over a black cavalcade.
Today, there was no negotiated revolution.
Today, no flags were burned.
Today, sport will be played and people will be upset over the outcome.
Tomorrow however, is a new day.
THE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE WHO LIKE THIS
And now, no matter where you go, you can look at a screen and see what one thousand other people like.
THE NOD AND THE WINK
Time never said
“Best you enjoy yourself now because we’re going somewhere soon.”
But that’s what he meant.
THE FEW AND FEWER
You can make the world beautiful just by refusing to lie about it.
THE RETURN TO GREEN
Oh shut up. Every time it rains, it stops raining. Every time you hurt, you heal. After darkness, there is always light and you get reminded of this every morning but still you choose to believe that the night will last forever. Nothing lasts forever. Not the good or the bad. So you might as well smile while you’re here.
THE ENVY OF WISHES
You wake up with a list of all the people you’d rather be. But you’re already on everyone else’s list.
THE NATURE OF MY BODY
That sound you hear, that’s the sound of someone realising that sometimes, it’s easier to change the world than it is your own life.
THE GHOST FARM
To you, it was just picking flowers. To them, it was a massacre.
THE RATIO OF LIFE TO LIVING
Oh sure, some people give a little bit each day. But there are one or two special souls who, when you least expect it, give an entire life’s worth all at once.
THE REFRACTED NIGHT
You forget that, in the dark, we must move closer together in order to see each other. You were never alone.
THE METRONOME TREE
Forget about your lists and do what you can because that’s all you can do. Phone up the people you miss and tell them you love them. Hug those close to you as hard as you can. Because you are always only a drunk driver’s stupidity, a nervous shopkeeper’s mistake, a doctor’s best attempts and an old age away from forever.
THE HARDEST YOU COULD BE
And you will find no fear here, in unkind words or the hardness of others.
And you will find no sadness here, in the meanness of the world, in the anger that comes from those who feel small.
And you will find no hurt here, in a million insults or a single, softly spoken lie.
Because only a hard heart shatters.
Only a hard heart, breaks.
THE DWINDLING CONVERSATION
“You’re beautiful.”
Replied the fly, to the spider.
THE OROBORUS I FELL IN LOVE WITH
Where you are, right here and now, this is how bad stories end. But it’s also how the best stories, begin.
THE CHAMELEONS LIVE IN THE CITY
I guess you’re proud of yourself for not trying to change me, even though all I ever wanted to do, was change.
THE WALL OF DAYS
You will never meet anyone who has done something great who waited for permission to do something great.
THE LIST OF CHANGES
We can answer any question we have, like how do actors make themselves cry, so we never sit in wonder and wonder at the wonder of the world, anymore.
And anything we watch can be paused, so we never argue about what just happened while we were talking, anymore.
We cannot hope that we might have just missed their call, because our phones are always with us and if they didn’t call, they didn’t call.
No protests in the streets, just a button marked ‘like’.
No one reads stories aloud, unless you are a child.
No letters. Just bills.
THE VIEW ON THE WAY DOWN
All the hardest, coldest people you meet were once as soft as water.
And that’s the tragedy of living.
THE WAY YOU LIE HERE
Don’t you dare tell me nothing matters. Everything matters. Every fucking drop of rain, every ray of sunlight, every wisp of cloud matters and they matter because I can see them and if I can see them then they can see me and I know that there’s an entire world that cares out there, hiding behind a world that doesn’t, afraid to show who it really is and with or without you, I will drag that world out of the dirt and the blood and the muck until we live in it. Until we all live in it.
THE PLACE EVERYONE WORKED
If you don’t think I’m important, you’re a no one, not a someone. Because everyone is important to someone.
THE MOTHS ARRIVE IN BLACK AND WHITE
The bad news is, people are crueler, meaner and more evil than you’ve ever imagined.
The good news is, people are kinder, gentler and more loving than you’ve ever dreamed.
THE AUDIENCE OF ONE
You’re too pretty to be weird and too weird to be pretty.
And you feel strange when people try to talk to you. So get a job, it’s safer than art. Maybe people won’t point and stare so much. Even if they’re only in your head. Especially if they’re only in your head.
THE SWEET RELEASE
If you blur your eyes, the streetlights become hundreds of ghosts going home.
THE TREES THAT DECIDED NOT TO DIE
As I put down my pen, I know someone, somewhere is picking up theirs.
I know that someone, somewhere is playing a guitar for the first time.
I know that someone, somewhere is dipping a paintbrush and marking a field of white.
I know that someone, somewhere is singing a song that’s never been sung.
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