Pillow Thoughts Page 2

  And if the moon could talk

  I wonder if he would tell the night

  Just how lovely she is

  With all those stars shining bright

  The world still has much love to give, and I see it; I hope that those blinded by hate and rage will feel it. A love so fiery it becomes the colour of cherries and candles and lipstick, and they will finally see the world with all its love to give.

  I will love you even if we don’t end up together. Even if you walk away from me, I will still love you. I will love you even if you marry someone else and on the coldest days of the year you spend your nights wishing you had married me after all, because no one knows how to ignite the fire in your soul quite the way I do.

  Love makes us both happy and sad and there is not a soul alive that has been able to understand why.

  When you take a lover who uncovers all your flaws, listens to the very essence of who you are and embraces you rather than judges you, hold on to this love for a lifetime, as you will never find a love quite as pure.

  But the world is exhausted, and the only wealth we have left is love.

  It will catch you off guard one day. You’ll be so surprised by it you may even lose your concentration. One moment you are living idly by and the next they are on your mind nearly every moment. You’ll lose sleep over the next time you’ll hear their voice. You might even find yourself daydreaming about a future together. One day you are ordering coffee every morning and the next you can’t even order coffee without thinking about ordering theirs too.

  You remind me that my heart is still alive

  Because every time you come home

  it beats so hard

  it brings me back to life

  It’s the last day of the year

  and I still lose myself

  in good books

  and warm tea,

  those quiet nights

  and writing your name

  on my windshield.

  What Makes Me Smile

  You

  in the morning light

  after making love

  all night.

  I hope you find someone who never makes you question your own self-worth. I hope you find someone who chases your happiness as much as their own. I hope you find someone who supports you in the things you are passionate about. I hope you find someone who you can laugh with and sit in silence with and share your deepest secrets with. I hope you find someone who is your lover, your partner and your friend. I hope you find someone who treats you as their equal, who learns and grows with you and beside you. I hope you find someone who appreciates all the tiny details that make up who you are. I hope you find someone who respects your heart, your family and your values. I hope you find someone who reminds you that you deserve the love you give.

  If you are heartbroken

  I tried to stop loving you

  so I built walls around my heart

  and found other names

  to whisper in the night.

  But you carved yourself into my veins

  whether you meant to or not.

  And sometimes I wonder

  if you remember the way we looked at each other

  or maybe you just forgot.

  Perhaps it’s just easier to smile and pretend everything is fine, rather than admit my heart’s a little swollen from losing something that wasn’t even mine.

  You told me that I was your rose, but in the winter you turned your attention to all the other flowers in the garden instead of tending to my fallen petals.

  My heart is not in my body

  it’s lying under the castle you burned down.

  Yet I am still here

  an empty shell with bloodshot eyes

  and a fake smile.

  Sometimes I wonder of all the goodbyes you’ve ever said, if

  mine is the one you can’t get out of your head.

  in the end

  we

  as in you and me

  were never

  meant to be

  You didn’t have to say anything that night; you did everything with your body and your eyes. The way you sat next to me, you were close enough to reach but too far to touch. And your eyes, those eyes that once said you’d love me forever, now spilled tears that this wasn’t worth the fight anymore.

  When did you become so tired of us?

  Don’t date broken girls,

  my mother said.

  “But they deserve to be loved too.”

  And so I loved a broken girl more than anything,

  I just didn’t realise she would break me too.

  And I count all the days

  you say I love you

  and I die on the days

  you don’t.

  Thinking maybe you might leave

  and praying that you won’t.

  I never really knew how much the heart breaks

  until I was lying next to you

  and you were thinking about someone else

  I still feel the aches you left behind, even after all the time you have been gone. This heart of mine has been broken before, but this emptiness has never left me quite as sore.

  You betrayed me

  Then you asked

  “where are you now?”

  But how could I stay

  when you betrayed me?

  It hurts a little and sometimes a lot

  when you care about someone

  but you’re both kind of messy

  and the timing is all wrong

  and you don’t feel like

  kissing someone else

  but you can’t force what’s not

  and letting someone in

  is scary enough

  but even scarier

  when your heart

  isn’t as strong.

  I picked up all your things

  and I put them in a box.

  I was going to send them back to you

  all those things you gave me

  when you promised I was the only thing you needed.

  And then I realised

  I can’t put every kiss in the box

  or return every “I love you”

  I can’t return every time I held you

  or unwrite every love letter I wrote you

  I can’t undo every time I touched you

  or unhear the way you said my name

  I can’t send back every “you’re beautiful”

  because things will never be the same.

  What am I going to do with all these things

  if I can never pack them away?

  I loved what we had too

  The only difference was that I saw it as

  forever

  and you saw it as

  just for now.

  I asked you to ride shotgun with me.

  I didn’t say hold the shotgun to my heart and

  pull the trigger.

  It’s been a while now and I still miss the way she said my name.

  I didn’t know my bones could ache forever for so long.

  They say there’s beauty in sadness but I don’t think so (at least not like this).

  When it’s 3am and alcohol is the only thing that helps me sleep.

  They didn’t warn me that heartache doesn’t always have someone to blame. Sometimes it’s no one’s fault (it’s probably all mine).

  I found her sweater the other day and it still smells like her and that spring we spent telling each other we’d be forever.

  I didn’t really think about how forever could end.

  She used to call me beautiful and look at me with eyes that meant it. Now I just don’t know how I’m supposed to hear that word from anyone else.

  I’m caught somewhere between moving on and holding on and not knowing which one I can handle best.

  I feel messy and uneasy and I don’t understand how one person with pretty eyes can destroy an empire inside me just by walking away.

  Her lips tasted like air after rain and
these days all I do is think about the way they felt between my thighs.

  My pillow isn’t her and the song on the radio isn’t ours. I sit next to a girl in class but we can’t talk for hours.

  Where do I go when a lover and a friend becomes a memory and a dead end?

  I saw her by the escalators last week. I smiled at her and she looked the other way. I felt my heart splinter all over again.

  Sometimes I write her letters thinking maybe she’ll write back.

  She never does.

  All your senses are heightened when you are heartbroken.

  You hear things more clearly because it’s better than listening to the drum of your heart.

  You feel the sun and the air on your skin because you are trying to feel things instead of shutting down.

  You smell their perfume everywhere.

  You still feel their fingers as though they are knotted through yours and it makes you cry.

  Ghost

  It happens. They forget the sound of your voice, the shape of your eyes and the curve of your smile. When you left, you tried to leave traces of yourself behind. But your smell on their sweater eventually fades, and your things in their drawers get pushed to the back and suddenly you aren’t real anymore. So you are replaced with someone who is. You are a ghost, a shadow, only a memory. So much that you wonder if you even existed to them at all.

  You spend your whole life convincing yourself you are a chapter worth following, and then someone comes along and doesn’t want to read the ending and suddenly the whole story falls apart.

  That’s what happens

  when your heart breaks,

  you tell yourself no one

  will ever be allowed inside again

  but then someone comes along

  with light in their eyes

  and suddenly your heart

  goes to war with your head

  When the stars ask you what it is you want,

  why do you speak of a love that tears you apart?

  Why do you crave a love that will break your heart?

  Your soul is never beyond repair, so stay humble and be kind

  and eventually a love will come along

  and remind you of why you are alive.

  I forgave you for myself.

  Not for you.

  You were too selfish for me.

  So when you broke my heart,

  I decided to be selfish too.

  Selfish in the way I stopped

  Making everything about you.

  When you are wounded, sometimes it’s best to retreat and heal. But do not stay hidden for too long, because all wounds need air.

  Stop trying

  to convince yourself

  of the things

  you already know.

  Your head wants

  another war

  when your heart

  needs to let go.

  I know what it feels like

  for my heart to ache

  and my soul to cry.

  I know what it feels like

  for things to be so hard

  it takes everything to get by.

  I know what it feels like

  when nothing seems steady

  and for things to derail.

  I know what it feels like

  to have person after person

  cause your heart to fail.

  But one day I hope you see

  the love you give yourself

  heals all parts eventually.

  Until finally she walks in

  and sets your heart free

  and reminds you why

  everyone else

  wasn’t meant to be.

  Breathe in, breathe out slowly and count to ten. There is no rulebook on how to cope when these things end. You may not feel it now, but things will get better, even if life doesn’t tell you when.

  That’s the thing about moving on. You are never going to find a love quite like the one before. The key is to stop wanting the same things and embrace the things to come.

  But you have to lay it to rest now. There is no point trying to revive a flame that has long extinguished. You sit at the gravestone of a fire that died out, and yet there is a city of flames burning in the distance. There is no need to punish yourself; you keep this up and you’ll be missing out.

  If you are lonely

  How does loneliness still exist with all these souls in the world?

  I fall a little in love

  With people who feel so alone

  Until the crowd falls away

  And they see you

  Standing there

  Waiting

  Like you promised

  And suddenly they realise

  They’re not

  My therapist asked, “How do you prepare for the day?”

  And I replied, “I count my lies, find my mask and pretend it isn’t easier to fly away.”

  I am no more the person that you left, than you are the person I miss.

  Anchor

  An anchor holds me down. I am a lonely ship and this weight will not let me go. I long to be free, to sail the ocean as far as one man can see. But there is an anchor, and the anchor is forcing me to drown.

  she’s the type of girl

  that has a place in her heart

  for all the lonely people to go

  with their forgotten footprints

  in the snow

  You are a lonely sailboat, afraid of drowning where no one will see. Yet you forget you have never been alone, not while you have the sea.

  Lately I have been making too many excuses

  You were a star I caught while gazing, but you burnt a hole in my hand

  You stripped me of all my certainty and left me with all these bruises

  You stole so much of me, more than I had ever planned

  But it is a new day and I feel like coming home

  Back to all the parts of me I’d forgot, the part that I don’t feel

  so alone

  But solitude can be a dangerous thing. All that comfort found lost in your own thoughts. It is easy to stay and never return, but braver to walk through the tunnel and out the other side.

  Imagine yourself a solar system, and the sun is your core. You are never going to truly lose the sun. But night does happen, so recharge and be ready to rise again in the morning.

  I get jealous

  even when people

  aren’t mine

  because others

  are reckless

  with their hearts

  and forget to

  be kind

  The Bus Stop

  There is a bus stop on the corner and each morning a gentleman sits. He feeds crumbs to the birds and whistles a song I do not know. And I wonder if anyone leaves roses on his windowsill to remind him that he is not alone.

  I know there isn’t a thing

  I could say

  to make the thoughts in your head

  any easier

  but I hope you know

  that above all the things

  running through your head

  sometimes it’s about

  what runs in your heart instead

  and if there’s anything I know

  about the things inside

  your heart

  it’s that they are beautiful things

  and strong things

  and things that will always

  be okay

  and if the things in your head

  seem a little messy

  and the things in your heart

  weigh a little heavy

  just know that you’ll beat

  all of these things

  and I’ll always love you

  even with all your things

  Sometimes a certain sadness

  comes along

  and you might not know

  where it is that you belong

  but your heart is home

  and I want you to know

  yo
u are never alone.

  Sometimes others say

  hurtful things

  that make you feel

  like your face is twisted

  and they suffocate your heart

  and some days it seems

  like everything is slowly

  falling apart.

  Sometimes your body aches

  and you feel like lead

  and it’s easier to pull your covers

  all the way over your head

  and pray that you never

  wake up

  but it’s very important

  that you do.

  So if you don’t feel beautiful

  when you open your eyes

  I hope this reminds you

  that I think you are,

  Just try to remember this too

  In the moments you feel alone

  and every mountain is too great

  for all the answers left unknown

  and convinced it is always too late