Every Word You Cannot Say

by Iain S. Thomas

don’t know your name. But I do know that it was beautiful to your mother and that the first time she said it, and decided it was yours, she smiled.

I do not know what you do for money, but I do know that sometimes, whatever it is, it’s difficult.

I know that at least once, if not several times, someone you knew woke up in the middle of the night thinking of you and wondering what became of you.

know your body will be cold, after you die and that right now, while you’re reading this, is the only time I can guarantee it will be warm.

And I want you to know that despite how wrong everything seems right now, you are someone special, in someone else’s story.

promise you, someone, somewhere in the world is thinking of how beautiful you are on the inside, how much they wish that whatever is hurting you would stop, how much they love you without ever having known your name.

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

Every single life you touch, moves the story forward. And so, if you’re kind, your story becomes part of many stories.

If things are good, they will change. If things are bad, they will change. Because change is the nature of every story.

Sometimes we do not see how much someone is already hurting and so when we hurt someone just a little, and they react, we think they’re overreacting, that they’re hostile and they think they’re finally being brave.

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

Embrace the you inside you, silence the voice that stops you from being able to truly help yourself and others.

You can be someone who matters to others. You can be someone who matters to you.

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.

There is a straight line that stretches back through every parent sitting in a chair looking at their child playing, knowing that their own parents must have looked at them the same way, and that one day the child you are looking at, will look at their own children like that, and you will be gone in all but the realization that you are joined by this imaginary line that stretches through generations.

There is only one real sin in the end, and that is not being who you are, not listening to your soul, and forgetting who you wanted to be. It’s hard but without anything to overcome, we would not become ourselves. Sometimes, this is all meant to be hard.

There are men and women throughout history who had far less than me, yet I know many of them must’ve been happier.

Forgive yourself for being you— you have done nothing wrong and tomorrow is another chance.

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

(You are still everything you could be.)

Break every vow that hurts you. Take every opportunity. Light all fires. Turn all keys.

The world will always wear you down, so let it wear you down until only the good remains. Hold on to the incredible parts of you that survive.

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

Given enough time, every building collapses, every flower turns to ash, every candle burns out, every name must be forgotten. This is not sad.

You are the person who asks who they are. You are a wonderer. A searcher. You are the person who asks who they are. It’s only the idea that everyone else KNOWS who they are that’s causing you pain. But no one knows who they really are. You are an overflowing river that shifts its banks when the rains come. That’s why you cannot hold on to who you are.

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.

Not everyone wins the lottery, but everyone who does bought a ticket. To live the life you want, you have to be brave and buy the ticket every single day.

Living the life you want, after you live the life you have, doesn’t actually work.

Don’t worry, time must pass, even in the moments when it feels like it can’t, or shouldn’t.

There is someone trying one more time, and then giving up, not knowing that they still had to try one more time after that.

you cannot hide your heart forever. This is true of other people too. Whether pure or impure, the heart shines through. Give anyone long enough, and they will tell you what is in their heart.

“Sometimes, I hide in a coffee shop because I want to hear my name being called by a stranger, by someone I haven’t disappointed yet.

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.