2007--2017 Read online

  I need you to understand something.

  I am fighting a kind of loneliness I think we all feel. I think the entire world is desperately alone. I think we get scared when we feel alone and that makes us not trust each other.

  I wrote this for you.

  I write to the soul of all things in the hope that someone is listening, in the hope that sometimes, I might hear them respond. I’m writing this to feel less alone.

  I wrote this for you and only you.

  The universe is desperately trying to move you into the only spot that truly belongs to you, in the whole entire thing, a space that only you can stand in. I believe it is up to you to decide every single day whether you are moving towards or away from that spot.

  I am trying to draw a map.

  Everyone else who reads it, doesn’t get it.

  Some see gentleness as weakness and sincerity as foolishness.

  They may think they get it, but they don’t.

  Bitterness is not the answer to life. If you think that being unhappy, untrusting and closed off from the world, if you think being cynical about the way the world is and the people in it is a viable strategy for being alive, then someone or something has hurt you and I’m sorry for the hurt that you feel. If they will not apologise for what they’ve done to you, then I will do it here on their behalf: I am sorry for what was done to you.

  This is the sign you’ve been looking for.

  Maybe you didn’t know you were looking but I think we’re all always looking for something, maybe this is it. And if it isn’t, I hope it points you in the right direction.

  You were meant to read these words.

  All I’m asking is that you trust me for a little while.

  Copyright © 2017 Iain S. Thomas

  Photography: Copyright © 2017 Jon Ellis

  Cover & Internal Design: Lavanya Naidoo, Iain S. Thomas, Michelle Halket

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Central Avenue Publishing, an imprint of Central Avenue Marketing Ltd.

  www.centralavenuepublishing.com

  Published in Canada

  Printed in United States of America

  1. POETRY / General 2. PHOTOGRAPHY / General

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77168-123-0 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-77168-124-7 (epub)

  ISBN 978-1-77168-125-4 (mobi)

  Thank you for finding this.

  The Start Of All Things

  –

  Today

  Do not start at the beginning.

  I am not there.

  If you want to understand me, hold me in your hands and think of someone.

  And then open me to the heart of me.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Please find me.

  You were not put here to impress others, to be better than others or to beat others at all costs.

  You were not put here to compare yourself to others and your success is not dependent on someone else’s failure.

  You were not put here to put others in their place, to teach them a lesson or lecture them about who they are. You can and should help others but don’t treat others like they’re broken just because they’re not who you think they should be - you were not put here to fix others.

  You were not put here to rise above others. You are unique but not special and that’s not a bad thing because it means all of us can achieve some kind of greatness.

  You were not put here to be against others.

  You were put here with others.

  The Gentlest Reminders Dropped From Passing Planes

  –

  Tuesday, July 26, 2016

  The Taking Of Turns

  –

  Monday, June 14, 2010

  You are in some songs that still get played on the radio when the DJ is feeling nostalgic.

  You are in a book you once lent me (never returned) with yellowed pages.

  You are in trees when I touch them, even ones without names carved into them.

  You are in the way someone on the street laughs as I pass them.

  You are in a box I keep filled with letters.

  You are in a ring I no longer wear.

  And, every day, you each get a moment to haunt me.

  The Song Across The Wires

  –

  Friday, April 16, 2010

  I’m a picture without a frame.

  A poem without a rhyme.

  A car with three wheels.

  A sun without fire.

  I am a gun without bullets.

  I am the truth without someone to hear it.

  I am a feeling without someone to feel it.

  This is who I am.

  A mess without you.

  Something beautiful with you.

  The Sheer Lack Of Existence

  –

  Monday, July 4, 2011

  I’m made of dreams and memories.

  I am made of misheard whispers in the dark.

  I am made of glances across crowded rooms.

  Of the closeness of strangers in a line outside a movie.

  I am made of the corners of your mouth.

  I am made of awkward elevator rides and the lack of security one finds on a doorstep, at the end of the evening, when one has enjoyed the company of another.

  I am made of the train tracks that take me home.

  I am made of ghost notes, from songs you never heard.

  So forgive my absence. But I was never really here to begin with, anyway.

  The Million Ways To Fail

  –

  Tuesday, June 30, 2015

  Here’s how you fail: You fail with your heart on your sleeve.

  You fail like you mean it with every part of you.

  You fail attempting the impossible and the ridiculous.

  You fail in front of others and you fail and they laugh at you and you fail and you feel nothing and regret less.

  You fail sincerely and earnestly and you risk everything at every opportunity.

  This is how you fail: You fail beautifully

  You fail with grace.

  The Hidden Clocks

  –

  Monday, November 9, 2015

  Don’t stop searching.

  There is no comfort in giving up.

  There are large parts of you that don’t exist yet.

  The greatest you you could be, is still waiting to be found.

  Get up and look.

  The Evidence Of History

  –

  Wednesday, February 11, 2009

  Sometimes I touch the things you used to touch, looking for echoes of your fingers.

  The Catwalk In The Sky

  –

  Sunday, January 17, 2010

  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 Sweet Release

  –

  Wednesday, May 19, 2010

  If you blur your eyes, the streetlights become hundreds of ghosts going home.

  The Things That Might Happen To Us

  –

  Thursday, February 16, 2017

  I don’t understand how you can be so worried about what might happen, when what might not happen, is so
much worse.

  The Only Part Of You I Love

  –

  Thursday, September 10, 2009

  You could ink yourself until everyone knows all the things you love. You could wear uniforms that gave you all the authority in the world. Lose weight until there was nothing left.

  Paint your face. Suck in your gut.

  But in the dark, stripped down to your bones, all that remains is you.

  The Melting Of Glaciers

  –

  Thursday, May 20, 2010

  I tried so hard after they left to make my heart hard. And now you have undone all my hard work.

  The Gods Tremble Before Quiet Strength

  –

  Monday, February 6, 2017

  I know you best when you are flowers in the barrels of rifles.

  I know you best when you are brave.

  I know you when your strength comes from your compassion and when your greatest fear, is that you have not been compassionate enough.

  I know you when you look at others not as others but as people you might have been, as people your parents might have been, as people your children might still be.

  I know you and I see you when you stand up.

  I know you and I see you when they tell you to be afraid, to hate, to go away from the world, to go away from each other. I know you and I see you when they scream storms at you, when they bury you beneath mountains, when they drown you in oceans, when they push you under and yet still you whisper from the deepest part of you:

  “No.”

  And when you do, I look at you and I say,

  “There you are. I know you.”

  The Fearful Planet

  –

  Wednesday, September 21, 2016

  Here’s the thing you need to remember: People talk about what they fear.

  They’re afraid you think that they don’t make enough money, so they talk about expensive things they’ve bought or want to buy.

  They’re afraid you think they’re uncultured, so they talk about where they’ve travelled or show you pictures of the places they’ve been or want to go, or obscure books they’ve read, movies they’ve seen or music they listen to. The important thing here is not that they enjoy it, but that they know about it and you don’t.

  They’re afraid, and so they roll their eyes at the simple things that make other people happy.

  They’re afraid of what people think of them and so they’re afraid of who they’re seen talking to.

  They’re afraid you think they’re out of touch and so they absolutely must talk about every new thing they find, as soon as possible.

  They’re afraid you think they haven’t accomplished anything, so they talk about what they’re busy with in detail, every chance they get.

  They’re afraid you think they’re ugly and that their life is a mess, so they show you as many photos of themselves looking calm and beautiful as they can.

  These are not the actions of brave people.

  These are the things you do, when you’re afraid.

  The Middle Of The Bridge

  –

  Monday, January 16, 2017

  I didn’t ask you here so you could like me.

  I asked you here so that someone would know who I was.

  The Map On My Skin

  –

  Wednesday, May 31, 2017

  Those aren’t scars.

  That’s where life underlined the important parts of you.

  The Air In My Lungs

  –

  Monday, July 5, 2010

  When sadness was the sea, you were the one that taught me to swim.

  The Tallness Of Things

  –

  Tuesday, May 10, 2011

  Falling buildings matter less than you noticing me. Because the world is big. And here, next to you, I am small.

  The Defender Of The Forgotten

  –

  Monday, March 8, 2010

  You are nobody’s hero. And nobody needs you. Desperately.

  The Language Stripped Naked

  –

  Wednesday, October 3, 2012

  And I’m sorry I ever learned any words that make you cry.

  I’m still doing my best to learn the ones that make you smile.

  The Fog And The Haze

  –

  Monday, October 13, 2008

  The Grand Distraction

  –

  Tuesday, June 19, 2012

  And every day, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling

  And each day, it’s up to you, to yank your hand back, put it on your heart and say,

  “No. This is what’s important.”

  The Reversal Of Misfortune

  –

  Thursday, March 5, 2009

  I always thought that I was sick and you were the cure. But everyone gets things backwards sometimes.

  The Burning Of Snow

  –

  Wednesday, March 29, 2017

  Tell me again, the story of all the things I cannot do, so I can tell you the story of how I will do them.

  The Ghost Train

  –

  Tuesday, May 26, 2009

  And if you can’t say yes, answer anyway. Because I’d rather live with the answer than die with the question.

  The Protestors In The Park

  –

  Monday, November 14, 2011

  And all around, people fall like leaves in the snow. But those who cut you down, do not know, they are planting a forest.

  The Black Ink In Their Eyes

  –

  Thursday, February 18, 2010

  The problem is you think poetry is about words. But the greatest poets I ever met, never wrote a single word.

  The Place We Were In

  –

  Friday, September 26, 2008

  And strum my fingers gently across your skin, like I was playing the slowest love song in the world and only you and I could hear it.

  The Untouchable City

  –

  Thursday, May 6, 2010

  That’s what it feels like when you touch me. Like millions of tiny universes being born and then dying in the space between your finger and my skin. Sometimes I forget.

  The Delusion You Suffer Under

  –

  Monday, June 15, 2015

  Nowhere on your body and nowhere on the Earth is it written:

  You were made to suffer.

  The Apart

  –

  Tuesday, April 15, 2008

  Avoid people who tell you that you must live apart from your heart.

  Art is found in the heart.

  The Orderly Queue

  –

  Friday, November 13, 2009

  Don’t be shy. You can take another piece of me. Everyone else already has.

  Until there’s nothing left.

  Until I disappear.

  The Tree In A Forest

  –

  Saturday, December 24, 2011

  And if you’re alone, I hope you know that I’m alone too. So I believe we will be friends.

  P.S. You are beautiful and loved by the universe that made you, with every atom and star moving in perfect alignment to make you, you.

  The Universe Isn’t Open For Business Today

  –

  Thursday, August 6, 2015

  You cannot trade your suffering for less suffering.

  The universe isn’t open for business today.

  You cannot trade the good you do for good done to you, or actual goods of any kind.

  You cannot trade your time for more time, you can only sell it once.

  You cannot trade your love for love, love is not a transaction.

  You cannot trade.

  Your money’s no good here.

  The universe isn’t open for business today.

  The Ambassador Of Bad Things

  –

  Monday, February 17, 2014

  When something really, really bad happe
ns to you, people will say to you, “I am sorry,” even if they had nothing to do with what happened.

  And it’s because sometimes things happen that are so bad that what they really mean is “I am acting as an ambassador and on behalf of everything that must hurt so much right now, I say sorry.”

  Because sometimes things are so bad, someone just has to say it.

  The Tour Of The Impenetrable Fortress

  –

  Friday, October 21, 2011

  “What type of building is this? Why would you hide all the beautiful things inside where no one can see them? From the outside, all I see is pipes and bricks, broken and rusted scaffolding, dirt and grime. No one would want to enter this place.”

  “Because I live inside. And other people, live outside.”

  The Words Are All In Languages I Do Not Speak

  –

  Tuesday, March 6, 2012

  And yet, when you get here, you are not given instructions. No one tells you that heart A is meant to slot into heart B. There are no diagrams about how you are meant to live each day or directions on how to assemble some semblance of happiness. You are not even told what colours to paint your feelings or given a purpose and a reason for your life.