Every word you cannot say

  Every Word You Cannot Say copyright © 2019 by Iain S. Thomas. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

  Andrews McMeel Publishing

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  ISBN: 978-1-5248-5274-0

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018949443

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  Production Editor: Amy Strassner

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  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.”

  So I’m fine.*

  *I am not fine.

  I 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 know she said it several times after that, like the words to a beautiful song only she knew. She tried it on like a beautiful summer day.

  I do not know what you do for money, but I do know that sometimes, whatever it is, it’s difficult. I do not know whether you are rich or poor, but I do know that regardless of how much money you have in the bank or how big your house is, numbers have never stopped the world from intruding on happiness.

  And sometimes, things are hard.

  I know that, once, someone touched your hand and you did not want them to pull their hand away, but they did and this made you sad. And for this reason, I also know that sometimes you smile even when there’s nothing to smile about.

  I know that the grass grew while you were sleeping. I know that somewhere on the other side of the world, the sun shone on people you will never meet.

  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.

  And they’ve contemplated calling you out of the blue.

  I know you have a tiny scar on your body that only you know about, that only you see now.

  I know you remember how you got it.

  I 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.

  I know that the sun will rise every single day until it doesn’t, until there’s no more reason to.

  I know that time itself holds you tight.

  I know that you get ink on your fingers and don’t know when it’ll come off.

  I know strangers can stain your heart

  in the same way.

  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 hurt and that you love and that, sometimes, love is the reason you hurt.

  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.

  I know that, sometimes, you wish someone would just say the words you needed to hear because, sometimes, you don’t even know what those words are.

  I feel what you’re feeling, if you feel these things.

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

  You are not reading this alone.

  You are a part of so much.

  Here:

  When you’re lost, take a brief

  moment to find yourself.

  In every moment.

  In every breath.

  In every star.

  In every blade of grass.

  In every lost toy.

  In every forgotten song.

  In every burnt map.

  In every broken glass.

  In every memory of perfume.

  In every taste.

  In every line.

  In your heart.

  In trust.

  When you touch this page, someone else, somewhere else, is waiting to touch the exact same spot, and is thinking of you.

  I 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.

  Reach out, and touch their heart.

  Because somewhere, they are reaching out to yours.

  Here.

  Here.

  Listen:

  You are part of a beautiful story.

  But “Chapter One” is not your first memory.

  The first word in this story was written a long, long time ago.

  And you are only in the story for just a few short pages.

  But in these pages, you get to decide how the

  story goes.

  Over time, you will play every character in the story.

  You will love and be loved.

  You will hate and be hated.

  You will be cruel and you will be kind.

  You will start young and if you are lucky, you will be old when it ends.

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

  So be patient and kind.

  But don’t let anyone tell you how your story should go.

  Only you know how your story goes.

  And when your pages are over, don’t be sad or angry.

  The wind does not stop being the wind

  when it stops blowing.

  A wave does not stop being a wave when it

  crashes

  against the shore.

  A story does not stop being a story when you turn the page.

  What have you lost between this page

  and this one?

  Every single life you touch, moves the story forward.

  And so, if you’re kind, your story becomes part of many stories.

  But life is not special because of what happens after it’s over.

  Life is special because life is special.

  Your story is special.

  And whether you know it or not, you are adding new words to it every single day.

  If things are good, they will change. If things are bad, they will change.

  Because change is the nature of every story.

  What words will you add to it today?

  Let me tell you how the world becomes

  better.

  The world becomes better when good people like you look at themselves and decide what kind of life they want to live, and what they’re willing to do to make it that way.

  This does not mean you need to fight more.

  It means you need to find ways to fight less.

  Sometimes, our immediate response to the way the world is, is anger, and the world is the way it is, because sometimes our immediate response to it, is anger.

  Wait for yourself,

  and be patient with yourself and others.

  Wait.

  There’s a kind of kindness that

  can settle on your heart.

  And Here?

  Here:

  You cannot say why you cannot forget the feeling of their skin against yours.

  Here.

  Here.

  Here.

  And point to the center of yourself.

  And tap your sternum.

  And touch your forehead.

  And touch your tongue.

  You cannot say that you are sorry they left, or that you left them.

  You cannot walk up to strangers in the street and say, “Here is where it hurts.”

  And point to the center of yourself.

  And tap your sternum.

  And touch your forehead.

  And touch your tongue.

  You cannot tell them,“This is what it feels like, like a pebble in a shoe you’re not wearing.”

  You cannot say it is the absence of them, and the presence of them, and the difference between those two things, that hurts the most.

  Here.

  Here.

  Here.

  Here.*

  *But when do we tell the truth

  and say what must be said?

  Only when the world ends?

  We all think this a game we can win, and there will be a moment when the game is over, when we can look at each other and see each other’s cards, and say everything we meant to say when we were alive and we could speak.

  “I fell in love with you and I never said

  anything.”

  “I hated you but I stayed.”

  “I just wanted you to know that what you did, hurt.”

  “Why couldn’t you love me like I loved you?”

  “Why did you leave?”

  But there is no chance after this one.

  (And I know you’re worried about what it takes

  to live, to speak, to start to feel better.)

  It takes time.

  But time is all it takes.

  Not your heart. Not your life.

  Just time.

  This is what no one tells you

  about hurting people.

  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.

  You are not a moment.

  Moments are just moments.

  You are so much more.*

  *We forget that how a person acts in each moment is not who they are, that each person is a series of moments and we cannot judge any moment in isolation, and use that moment to define them. It is not up to others, it is up to us, which moments we want to hang on to, for good or for bad. We forget our successes and enshrine our failures. We forget there is still a child in all of us, begging for love. We forget that this is true of every person we meet.

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

  But where is the goodness of the world?

  There is room in the universe for much love, for those who would put it there, for those with the patience and goodness of heart to love, there is great peace in every moment, if we only wait for it to leave our hearts,

  like

  an

  overflowing

  river.*

  Here

  Here

  *Here

  You are

  Here.

  So

  know

  the

  kindness of the

  universe. And know that there is great hope for us, if we can find the hope inside

  ourselves first.

  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.

  There is a kind of light that can shine in anyone, if they give themselves the space to shine.

  You need to remember because life has a way of making you forget.

  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.

  Because the world needs

  an infinite heart, like

  yours.

  Or just a place where

  everyone fits.

  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.

  And Here is what those who have

  just arrived on Earth

  cannot say:

  “I’m sorry I made a mess,

  I’ve never had hands before.

  Don’t get angry at me because I’m scared.

  Hold me until it passes.

  I heard a noise and I was worried that it was the end of the world.

  You walked away and I was worried you were never coming back.

  I was hungry and I was worried I would never eat again.

  I was cold and I was worried I would never be warm again.

  It was dark and I didn’t know if the sun would come out again.

  There were voices and I didn’t know whose they were.

  I’ve never done any of this before.

  Love me, because I love you more than

  anyone else has ever loved 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.

  “Wait, you’re doing nothing wrong.”

  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.

  It is ok to struggle.

  So do not ask for an easy life,

  with nothing to do.

  An easy life is not a good life.

  And no one is always happy.

  Here is one of my daily sadnesses:

  There are men and women throughout

  history who had far less than me,

  yet I know

  many of them must’ve been happier.

  Here is something that makes me happy:

  I believe that there is a restaurant somewhere in

  the universe that serves nothing but first meals

  and last meals.

  The first time you ate with the person you loved.

  The first time you discovered you enjoyed something, you always thought you’d hated, and the last time you ate with someone, without knowing it was the last time.

  Somewhere, you can stretch every moment into a

  kind of forever.

  Here is the secret we all know:

  We all want to love.

  We’re all afraid we are alone.

  We’re afraid no one will know who we were.

  Because on some level, we all know you can die without love, without anyone, without even you knowing

Every Word You Cannot Say

I don’t know why you’re reading this book.

All I know is why I wrote it.

• I wrote it because a few years ago a childhood friend of mine took his own life.
• And I miss him. And I wish he was around so I could say the things I can’t say now.
• I wrote this because there are people I once thought would be in my life forever, who would never change. And now they aren’t in my life anymore, and everything has changed.

And I miss them.

And there are things I wish I could say to them too.

• I wrote this because I’ve seen you, a stranger, standing alone in a crowded room, and even though we don’t know each other, there are things I want to say to you, and things I wish you could learn to say to yourself.
• I wrote this because the world doesn’t allow us to simply walk up to each other and say, “I can see there is some secret part of you that hurts when no one’s looking, and I think if we talk about it, it might not hurt as much. I think the thing hurting you, is hurting me too.” I wrote this because our most sacred truths, our most honest confessions about who we are and how we really feel about each other, are reserved for eulogies, and that’s not right. I wrote this because sometimes, I find myself in such dark places I don’t know if I’ll ever find my way out.

So some of the things I’ve written down are the things I wish I could say to myself when I find myself there.

This is a book you can take into dark places.

Maybe it won’t always show you the way home, but it will always let you know that you’re not alone and sometimes, that’s enough.

In the end, I wrote this because without knowing you at all, I want you to know that you are loved and stronger than you think.

So if you’re still reading, then listen.

With every word, I will do my best to be worth listening to.