I imagine there was a look of surprise on my face, on the day you shot me in the back of the head.
I wonder if you thought you were being merciful by waiting until I wasn’t looking, on the day you shot me in the back of the head.
I probably stared off at a distant point, while you gathered your things together and left, on the day you shot me in the back of the head.
And I know that my body was there for a while and that the room was dark and that it was very quiet, because of what you’d done, on the day you shot me in the back of the head.
But what you might not know, is that I got up.
And washed my face.
And the sun rose again.
On the day after you shot me in the back of the head.
THE STUFF AND THE THINGS
If you like a whole bunch of things and I like a whole bunch of things, maybe one of the things that we both like, can be each other.
THE SHOT STARS
If your star falls down, you will find mine lying beside yours.
THE THINGS I MEANT
A heart was meant to beat. And air was meant to be breathed, close to your ear. And your skin was meant to remember what mine felt like. And some songs were meant to play on repeat. And the sun was meant to come down. And we were meant to ignore it when it woke up. And days were meant to pass. And nights were meant to follow. And your eyes were meant to cry out whatever pain was left.
And I never meant to hurt you.
But I guess that’s what everyone says.
THE LONGEST SHADOW
You know what I would do for love. But no one ever asked me how far I would go, for loss.
THE BILLIONS OF PIECES
The human heart is made from the only substance in the universe that can become stronger, after it’s been broken.
THE SIMILARITIES DIDN’T MAKE US THE SAME
You spend your whole life learning what you shouldn’t care about. Until one day you find out you didn’t care enough.
THE DEFECT AT THE HEART FACTORY
There is no heart you can have that another heart will not have a problem with.
THE SUN WILL FREEZE BEFORE I DO
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 to 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 LIGHT FROM FROZEN GRAVES
“But I just want to stop feeling.”
“As far as I can tell, there’s only one way to stop feeling and that’s to die.”
“That seems a bit drastic.”
“It is drastic. Perhaps the most drastic thing there is. There are other ways to kill feelings, like drinking a lot or working hard, constantly, pushing those around you as far away as possible until there’s no way for you to reach out to them but ultimately, the only way to completely stop feeling, forever, is to die.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”
“Good. You’ll be a better person for it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the most interesting, amazing people I’ve ever met, the ones who influenced and shaped the universe itself, are the ones that felt too much but lived through it.”
“That sounds hard.”
“It is. It involves living.”
THE STORM BEFORE THE CALM
You’re still here but I am still the sea. And as peaceful as I seem, please don’t ever turn your back on me.
THE THINGS I HAVE FELT HAVE TORN ME APART
Those who walk away from you in the dark should be forgotten in the light.
THE PHANTOM LIMBS
And when we speak now, seldom as that is, the old language returns. I wonder if it makes old names make guest appearances in your mind. If you can feel the skin of my neck near yours one more time. Do you reach across the bed for a shape, no longer there. Do you remember it clearly or is it all just memories of memories. Is there still warmth from my fingers tracing the contours of your skin, left somewhere in your body. If you smell the smell of how I used to smell in a crowd, do you think of these things. Is something missing in everyone else’s or someone new’s voice. Will they never know quite how to laugh or breathe just behind your ear. Do they know what you look like when you want to leave a party, when you’ve had too much of people. Could they rebuild your body out of clay if they needed to, because they’ve touched it so many times. Does your back still arch the way it used to when I still kissed you.
Does an old singer sing an old song on an old radio.
Do the lyrics still shake your fucking soul.
Did it sound like this?
THE EXPANDING DISTANCE BETWEEN TWO POINTS
Making you regret what you did to me is not ‘me winning’.
It’s everyone still losing.
THE UNIVERSE WILL TAKE YOU
They might not like you at school.
And they might not like you at work.
And they might not like you in a park.
And they might not like you on the moon.
And they might not like you in summer.
When you say they remind you of winter.
But this universe, will always love you.
This universe, will take you.
THE MISSING BREAD CRUMBS
Stop telling me to follow my heart. It once led me to you.
THE MORNING BELL
“Did you see them? With all their feelings hanging out? With their emotions exposed?”
“I know, what a freak.”
“What are you doing tonight?”
“Crying myself to sleep, wondering why I never truly feel loved. You?”
“Same.”
THE FINAL EXAM
a) Rain is the sound of the night rolling over in its sleep.
b) Rain is a record of broken promises and each one is sent back to earth to clean it.
c) Rain is life by a 1000 cuts.
d) Rain is a coronary anesthetic.
e) Rain is the world secretly crying for you, when no one else will.
THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF SILENCE
There’s a silence you can only find after a phone has been put down in anger, another one that only exists for a moment after a door is slammed.
But there is also a silence that a smile makes when you smile it and a silence that loves makes, when you love it.
THE START OF THE WORLD WIDE WAR
Please know that they shot first, when they tried to outlaw our entire culture and our way of being, when they threw us off our land.
Please understand that our only weapons were our eyes and our collective voices and when they marched on us, when they raised their clubs in rude salutes to the sun, we held up our camera phones and said over and over and over again:
The whole world is watching.
The whole world is watching.
The whole world is watching.
And when they were so ashamed of who they were, they wanted, needed us to close our eyes, they pepper-sprayed our faces, as we held each other close, as they revealed their true nature, to the tune of 1000, 1000 jackboots marching and we sat there and cried.
Please know that they did their best to divide us, to tell us that where the water met the dirt we were born on was somehow sacred, that the strips of colour on the flap of fabric waving above our heads were holy, that the way the light refracted off our skins defined our character.
They drove their cars through us in Tahir Square and they took our pensions on Wall Street and then they told us we were going to jail because we shared songs with each other.
I know that you do not have fat, bloated middlemen, I know the dictators have fallen
, I know that the gatekeepers have all faded out and you live as earthlings, undivided by imaginary borders and differences.
Because I know I was born here on the blue electric fields, in the democracy of ideas, in the new country.
And this is a place worth dying for.
THE GAP BETWEEN WHO YOU ARE AND WHO YOU WANT TO BE
Nothing can be beautiful.
Not all the spaces inside you need to be filled.
Who you still have the chance to be, lives in the spaces you give yourself.
THE CORRECT AND PROPER WAY TO FEEL
“Is this how I’m supposed to feel now?”
“I don’t know, I’ll check the manual.”
“And?”
“It says that you’re feeling the right way.”
“What way is that?”
“It says that there is no right way to feel but, right now, after something like this happens, you do need to feel however you’re feeling and that feeling this way, however you’re feeling, is healthy.”
“That doesn’t sound very scientific.”
“It has nothing to do with science.”
“Does it say anything else?”
“It says you’ll break something if you beat yourself up for the way you feel and that you won’t be able to feel differently until you’ve finished feeling this feeling.”
“Ok. How long will that take?”
“I don’t know. How do you feel?”
THE LANGUAGE OF STARS
Love:
To discover there’s at least one other real person on planet Earth.
Loss:
To discover that the aliens, can look just like you.
THE SNOW FALLS ON FOREVER (HUSH)
You can’t miss forever.
No matter how close forever feels right now.
You can’t hurt forever.
Even if your heart whispers in your ear and tries to convince you otherwise.
You can’t bleed forever.
Sooner or later, you will either die or live.
Neither of us can do anything for forever.
Because forever passed away, long ago.
THE HATE FEEDS THE HATE
You say there is an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ and we must fight.
I say there is only an us. And we must love.
THE WAR AGAINST THE SEA
You say that only a fool believes that everyone has some good in their heart.
You say that only a fool makes music in their mind.
You say that only a fool loves hate back.
You say that only a fool leans against the wind.
You say that only a fool takes on a planet.
You say that only a fool holds out hope.
You say that only a fool tries to fly.
You say that only a fool fights the sea.
Very well.
I am that fool. And I will die fighting.
THE STATE OF THE ARTIST
You, as an artist, have the greatest responsibility of all.
You are charged with trying to make people feel, in a world that tells them not to.
You are tasked with speaking soft words, painting, playing, filming, writing moments of such magnitude and beauty that people rediscover their hearts one more (last) time.
You are here to give meaning to the few decades we spend here.
That is the reason you were sent to Earth.
THE FRACTALS OF TIME PASSING
Today you became a yesterday, when once you were a tomorrow.
THE BREAKING OF PEOPLE
You can try being broken and you can try forgetting. All I know is I am no longer broken about the things I have forgotten.
THE WORLD IS A MONSTER
Scratching at the windows and the door, the world could not wait to kill us.
They got in so slowly, with distractions and memos, with forgotten dinners and missed calls.
No.
The world could not wait to kill us.
And I clutched you close, and I swear: I wished on every wish, that neither of us would fall.
But, no.
The world could not wait to kill us.
And we died.
THE FEELING OF SOMEONE DRAWING YOU
And if you want to know the feeling I’m talking about, run your own fingers slowly through your hair, and pretend they’re someone else’s.
THE WORLD CHANGED, NOT ME
You think I’m unreasonable.
But in an unreasonable world, that’s just how I look.
THE LAST PART OF THIS SENTENCE IS STILL YOURS
You still take things from me in the most beautiful way.
You are still the only way I can sleep, when I wake up to tell you, I cannot sleep.
You still make sense in a way that only birds know when they leave winter.
THE QUIET REBELLION
Challenge the world that gives you the chance to live longer but asks you to do small things with that longer life.
THE WORDS I WILL READ SO WE RECOGNISE EACH OTHER WHEN WE MEET AGAIN
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy, happier than I’ve probably ever been. If you detect any sadness, it is only because I have found you in this life but I am not sure if I have found you in previous lives and I am worried about finding you in future ones.
What if there is a series of sad me’s going backwards and forwards in time who did not and do not find you?
What if this is the only point of light along that infinite line?
So I am sorry if there is a hint of sadness.
I am just feeling sorry for myself.
THE ALCHEMY MACHINE
If you can take the sadness and despair the world gives you and breathe it back out as love and hope, breathe some back to me.
THE FIRE IN THE STREETS
Between the fire and you and your skin, there is no room for light.
And the rocks that survived the heat around me only weighed me down.
But I still put a rock inside my heart so I can remember what it felt like to swim up, from the bottom of a volcano.
THE MEMORY OF BEAUTY
I hope things are beautiful. And if they’re not, then I hope you remember this moment right now when they are. Because you’ve got to hold up each and every other moment to the moment when things are beautiful and say,
“Look. I told you. Remember this.”
THE DESCENT INTO LIGHT
If you’re not afraid, there is no end, only an imminent bliss. So burn like love and love like fire.
THE SAME RIVER, TWICE
Everyone changes so slowly, they don’t even know that they have.
And everyone likes to pretend that things are just the same yet they look at you like you could bring something back that’s supposed to already be here.
But home is a time. Not just a place.
THE FATE OF THOSE BORN IN DIRT
When I end, I will end as a tree ends: as a fire, bleeding out the sunlight from every summer it lived.
So do not judge me yet.
You have only seen, how I begin.
THE LIGHT THAT SHINES WHEN THINGS END
I hope that in the future they invent a small golden light that follows you everywhere and when something is about to end, it shines brightly so you know it’s about to end.
And if you’re never going to see someone again, it’ll shine brightly and both of you can be polite and say, “It was nice to have you in my life while I did, good luck with everything that happens after now.”
And maybe if you’re never going to eat at the same restaurant again, it’ll shine and you can order everything off the menu you’ve never tried. Maybe, if someone’s about to buy your car, the light will shine and you can take it for one last spin.
Maybe, if you’re with a group of friends who’ll never be together again, all your lights will shine at the same time and you’ll know, and then you can hold each other and whisper,
“This was so good. Oh my God, this was so good.
”
THE INFINITE DISTANCE
Your poetry is lonely. And yet, you write to feel less alone.
The Act Of Living Is Lethal
The Age At Which It Happens
The Agony Of Being Other People
The Air Carries You Away
The Alchemy Machine
The Ambassador Of Bad Things
The Angle At Which We Are All Judged
The Anxiety Inherent In Air
The Bandages Are Made Of Shadows
The Beautiful Trap
The Billions Of Pieces
The Blue Blood
The Blurred Palace
The Bombs Destroy More Than Just Cities
The Breaking Of People
The Briefest Respite
The Broken Ice In Your Wake
The Camera Is A Bag For Memories
The Carrington Event
The Centre Of The Universe
The Child With The Invisible Head
The City That Sleeps Where They Fell
The Clearest Lens
The Coldness Of Stone
The Cold Reflection
The Colours Of Stolen Sleep
The Complications Start With You
The Correct And Proper Way To Feel
The Dark Words You Walk Down At Night
The Days Before Childhood
The Day We Stopped Dying
I Wrote This for You and Only You Page 4
