Every Word You Cannot Say

by Iain S. Thomas

I don’t know why, but I do not feel like I’m like you, or anyone else. I feel like I’m the only one who feels the things I feel, or thinks the way I think. I’m worried that I’m taking everything too seriously, or not seriously enough. Sometimes I want you to see me, and sometimes I want to disappear.

I don’t know if I’ve ever truly felt like the ground beneath me was firm. Things always feel like they’re moving and I never get the chance to catch up to them and when I do, it feels like it all goes too quickly. I am nice to people I don’t like because I don’t know what else to do. I feel like I’m waiting for something but I don’t know what it is. I often walk past people in the street, and I wonder if anyone else is waiting too. I don’t know if I’m ever, really, “Here.”

I know sometimes your brain is too loud and your heart bangs on the ceiling with a broom, screaming, “Shut up, you’re going to ruin this for us.” I know sometimes, it’s too late, and the music plays on.

I know you feel things and wish sometimes that someone was there to tell you that you’re allowed to feel everything you’re feeling.

Everyone you meet along the way is just someone at a different point in their story.

Because change is the nature of every story.

We only hear the loudest voices when really, we should be listening to the quietest.

Now listen: You are made of good things. You are capable of incredible things. You are a song the universe sings itself, in every color it can imagine. Some parts are sad. Some parts are happy. Every part of the song, is a part of you. Listen.

Listen to the sound of the universe.

LISTEN: Because we forget Time is coming, even though he’s always coming. We forget to listen to the poem in the grass and the light and the water. We try to sound clever, instead of listening to the heartbeat in the stars.

Don’t get angry at me because I’m scared. Hold me until it passes.

Love me, because I love you more than anyone else has ever loved you.”

(What you feel is not brokeness, it is the desire to love yourself how you were meant to be loved. It is your heart crying out.)

In your head, in the dream, you are both the monster and the person the monster is chasing. You are your fear and your love and you are the embodiment of all the things you feel. Only you hold you back, or push you forward.*

But if we are the monster, and the person being chased, then we need to stop running because we cannot run away from ourselves.

and that feels good, so love, because love is good, because it feels like you’re floating.

You are the picture you paint, of you.

You love again. Recycle your heart. Someone out there needs it.

Why do we hurt ourselves more, when other people hurt us? Why do we beat ourselves up, for feeling beat up?

Maybe the lesser pain you cause yourself distracts you from the bigger pain inside.

But the correct response to pain, is self-love.

It can be hard to be conscious in the moment and remember to be kind to ourselves when someone hurts us. But you need to try.

“I know who I am. I am the one that looks for me. And every single day, I find me again. I find myself in the things I do and the things I notice. I find myself in crowds and in solitude. I find myself in quiet moments and at the top of tall mountains. I find myself in the tips of waves, in forests, and in the books I read. I find myself in leaves and rain and old photos. Every single day, I find me again.”

There are days when everyone needs you to be strong, even if you’re dying inside, and you can only cry when no one’s looking because you’re petrified of letting them down.

Often, we hate people not because they have wronged us, but because they have reminded us of some secret part of ourselves that we don’t like.

And sometimes anger is your body’s way of telling you that you’re ready to change things.

You get to decide what eats you up.

This page is Here to tell you that it’ll be ok.

We all intend to be perfect but none of us are.

If only we could all see each other as we intended to be, instead of as who we are.

And you cannot hide your heart forever.

I was sad a moment today, when I had no right to be, when I should’ve been happy.

“It hurts because we have hearts. It hurts because we’re human and we need to hurt this way, or we’d be something else.”

And you can hide so much, you forget what it’s like to be found.”

I really do hope you find what you’re looking for, and I hope you find something new to look for after that, and I hope some part of you is always looking and that you discover that searching is something beautiful we all do.

And in the quietest moments of the world, I can say that I love me. I owe myself the best of me. And no one can take that away.

I do the hard work of protecting my heart, from the people who would hurt it.

You cannot fix me because I am not broken. And even though everything has changed, I am still more me than I’ve ever been.