I Wrote This for You_2007 TO 2017

by Iain S. Thomas

  The Reminders In The Sky

  –

  Thursday, June 17, 2010

  You are the distance between the way things are and the way I want them to be.

  The Garbage I Became

  –

  Monday, November 7, 2011

  Now the TV’s on at 3am and you’re sleeping on the couch, because you can.

  Now the plate is where you left it, no one else is going to move it for you.

  Now the politics of blankets are gone.

  Now the people on the radio sound so far away.

  Now you’ve got no plans when you wake up, just keep on keeping on.

  Now the morning fades to light, to twilight, to night.

  Now you rinse and repeat.

  Now you remove the sleeve and remove the film.

  Now you remove the sleeve and pierce the film several times.

  Now dinner takes exactly 2:30 minutes.

  Now the Earth hurtles through the universe around a giant ball of fire.

  Now none of your acquaintances know they’re really your only friends.

  Now none of your friends know they’re just acquaintances.

  Now you’ve got to get used to being alone, like when you’re born, like when you die.

  Now you’re free.

  Now you can do whatever you want.

  You just have to do it alone.

  The Packaging Of People

  –

  Monday, March 7, 2011

  “But this is just another box.”

  “No it’s not, it’s the box we put you in if you say, ‘Don’t put me in a box.’”

  The Possibility Of Clouds And Thunder Showers

  –

  Friday, July 17, 2009

  Oh, how I wish you wouldn’t worry so. There’s hope in every breath. But when fear infects the bones, I’m told, the heart is always next.

  The Train Of Lies

  –

  Monday, September 21, 2009

  I say that I won’t touch you.

  But my fingers are liars.

  I tell you how I won’t hold you.

  But my arms are going to hell.

  I promise I won’t kiss you.

  But my lips break it.

  I let you know that I won’t love you.

  But my heart has no conscience.

  And no part of me will apologise.

  The Way You Lie Here

  –

  Monday, August 3, 2009

  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 Scratches That Made Me

  –

  Tuesday, September 22, 2009

  You buy things and you keep them clean. You take care of them. Keep them in a special pocket. Away from keys and coins. Away from other things that should be kept clean and taken care of as well. Then they get scratched. And scratched again. And again. And again. And again. Soon, you don’t care about them anymore. You don’t keep them in a special pocket. You throw them in the bag with everything else. They’ve surpassed their form and become nothing but function. People are like that. You meet them and keep them clean. In a special pocket. And then you start to scratch them. Not on purpose. Sometimes you just drop them by accident or forget which pocket they’re in. But after the first scratch, it’s all downhill from there. You see past their form. They become function. They are a purpose. Only their essence remains.

  The Missing Machine

  –

  Monday, October 31, 2011

  There’s a folder of pictures I can’t open.

  There’s so many songs that don’t sound the same.

  There’s a number I can’t dial and a message I can’t send.

  There’s a restaurant I can’t eat at, not with any friends.

  There’s words and names I can only say in my head.

  There’s a pair of eyes that belong to you, that I can never look into again.

  The Inscription

  –

  Thursday, September 3, 2009

  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 is 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 is where I die. This is where I die. This is where I die.

  Here.

  The Reactions

  –

  Thursday, August 7, 2008

  If you jump, the universe will catch you.

  If you open your arms, the world will do the same.

  The City Has A Lullaby

  –

  Monday, August 22, 2011

  This is a city of sleepwalkers.

  That never sleep.

  Those are the sounds that pull you out of bed.

  These are the hands that rock the world to sleep.

  There’s nothing to be afraid of in a dream.

  The Winter Child

  –

  Friday, October 26, 2012

  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.

  I promised a lot.

  But never that I wouldn’t get back up after you knocked me down.

  Never that my broken remains wouldn’t catch fire.

  Never that I wouldn’t burn through the ice and snow one more time.

  And you can slam your glaciers into me, so slowly, and even though they hurt, I will not go numb from the cold, I will not pass out from the pain, I will look up at you and the world and whisper through bloody teeth,

  “More…”

  The Sun Will Freeze Before I Do

  –

  Tuesday, February 7, 2012

  The Midnight That Lasted Forever

  –

  Wednesday, August 11, 2010

  Somewhere, there is a beach that time cannot reach. Where everyone and everything has always been and never was. And perhaps, you are there waiting for me.

  In that place, time cannot touch.

  The Solitary Figure

  –

  Wednesday, November 26, 2008

  You are defined by the way in which you treat the people you love. And, the people you hate.

  The Space Between Seconds

  –

  Monday, September 22, 2008

  It’s not your watch I care about.

  It’s the time you keep.

  The Place I Do Not Rest

  –

  Thursday, February 6, 2014

  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 Water Flows Uphill

  –

  Monday, July 6, 20
09

  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 Importance Of Correctly Numbering Things

  –

  Wednesday, October 24, 2012

  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 Person You Are Is Better Than The Ghost You Were

  –

  Tuesday, April 20, 2010

  If the type of person you wish existed doesn’t, then that is who you must become.

  The Excuse For Your Company

  –

  Sunday, February 22, 2009

  I was wondering if you had a second. To talk about anything at all.

  The Air In Space

  –

  Tuesday, April 20, 2010

  If you ever forget how to breathe, I can remind you.

  The Stuff That Matters

  –

  Wednesday, October 15, 2008

  I want to fight over little things with you.

  The Glaring White Beyond Heartbreak

  –

  Monday, February 3, 2014

  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 Fading Grey

  –

  Sunday, April 19, 2009

  It’s easy. You just love me with all your heart and soul till the end of time.

  The Paint Hides The Brick

  –

  Monday, June 21, 2010

  You took all my words when all I wanted to do was say them.

  The Light Of Future Memories

  –

  Monday, April 2, 2012

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

  The Rose Tinted Glasses

  –

  Monday, July 25, 2011

  You reach a certain age where you learn how to walk through a crowded party without stepping on anyone’s feet. You reach a certain age where you learn how to wear the skin you’ve been given. You reach a certain age where you can look at your relationships to other people completely objectively. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been told.

  The Glitter Phoenix Burns Again

  –

  Thursday, August 27, 2009

  I won’t compose prose every morning you open your eyes next to me (I won’t compare you to a summer’s day).

  I won’t kiss the tears from your cheeks whenever you cry.

  I won’t remember every appointment.

  I won’t keep the sheen on my armour.

  I won’t know what to say sometimes.

  I won’t get your order right.

  I’ll be late.

  I’ll fuck up.

  But I’ll write something for you when you least expect it (in summer or winter).

  But I’ll hold you as tight as I can whenever I can.

  But I’ll burst through the door as soon as I remember.

  But I’ll polish it until it shines again.

  But I’ll say something anyway.

  But I’ll go back and make it right.

  But I’ll get there.

  But I’ll try.

  The World Is Better Backwards

  –

  Tuesday, July 27, 2010

  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.

  The Layers Unseen

  –

  Thursday, June 4, 2009

  There is magic even here, in gridlock, in loneliness, in too much work, in late nights gone on too long, in shopping trolleys with broken wheels, in boredom, in tax returns, the same magic that made a man write about a princess that slept until she was kissed, long golden hair draped over a balcony and fingers pricked with needles. There is magic even here, in potholes along back-country roads, in not having the right change (you pat your pockets), arriving late and missing the last train home, the same magic that caused a woman in France to think that God spoke to her, that made another sit down at the front of a bus and refuse to move, that led a man to think that maybe the world wasn’t flat and the moon could be walked upon by human feet. There is magic. Even here. In office cubicles.

  The Secrets Hidden In Stone

  –

  Wednesday, May 6, 2015

  There are people doing great things that they don’t know are great yet.

  They sit in their bedrooms, not knowing they are writing the most beautiful song you will ever hear. They go to their jobs, hiding great novels somewhere in the depths of their computers. They paint, not knowing how important their picture will be.

  They do all this with no promise of any reward or any recognition, and so there are truly great, secret things, everywhere. Waiting to explode.

  It is the most beautiful thing in the world.

  The Cosmic Joke

  –

  Tuesday, September 27, 2011

  And yet, of all these things, we feel sadness the most. We are never buoyed upon an ocean of apathy. We are never crushed by complacency. We are never moved by the okayness of the world.

  Sadness and pain, to help us flee danger and hurt. To help us get away when we’re bleeding. You have a body and it screams, “Something stirs like broken glass in my chest, leave this place, before I die.”

  An animal part of us, still here after all these years, breaks our hearts.

  The World Is Not As Dark As It Seems

  –

  Friday, August 15, 2014

  If you ever wake up, and think that no one needs you, I need you.

  If you ever wake up, and think that there’s no love, I will always love you.

  If you ever wake up, and can’t find your purpose, I will hold a candle and help you find it.

  If you ever wake up, and don’t know who or why you are, I can tell you.

  If you ever wake up, and don’t know why you bothered, I will remind you.

  Please remember me, and let me give you reasons.

  The Place The Light Strikes Red

  –

  Tuesday, November 8, 2016

  I write down every reason to be afraid on your wrists, and below my eyelids, where the light strikes red.

  You might get addicted to someone.

  You might get addicted to being alone.

  You might get your heart broken.

  You might have to mend it yourself.

  You might die.

  You might even, live.

  The Moths Arrive In Black And White

  –

  Friday, January 15, 2010

  The bad news is, people are crueller, meaner and more evil than you’ve ever imagined.

  The good news is, people are kinder, g
entler and more loving than you’ve ever dreamed.

  The Armistice

  –

  Sunday, October 5, 2008

  We wanted a war but we called it peace. And we bombed each other’s cities till nothing was left. Now you’ve left me alone to take care of the wounded. The least you could’ve done was help me bury the dead.

  The Strangers Were Lovers

  –

  Monday, December 7, 2009

  You look at me, now, like this and think, “This is who they were all along.”

  But this is just who I am to other people. And you became other people.

  The Gap In Happiness

  –

  Wednesday, March 25, 2009

  You are so full of the things that you don’t have that you don’t have space for the things you do.

  The Way Saturn Turns

  –

  Wednesday, May 27, 2009

  All I can do, if I feel this way, is trust that somewhere in the universe, there’s a you that feels the same.

  The Fellow Passenger On A Crashing Train

  –

  Monday, March 31, 2014

  Even though I’ve just met you, I believe we will be friends.

  First, I will tell you something about me, then you can tell me something about you, as that, I believe, is how friendship works.