Pillow Thoughts Page 5

  but this is not how they see you.

  When they look back at you

  they see an entire universe,

  you are a body of art

  you are a map of galaxies

  you are every flower

  lovely from the start.

  So when recovery seems far away

  and no one understands

  when life cannot get any worse

  and you would rather cry all day,

  know you are wanted and loved.

  I cannot survive.

  Yes, you can.

  You are needed,

  so please

  choose to stay alive.

  Gentle Reminders

  I have come to know that it is better to feel

  than to feel nothing at all.

  Conversations are meant to be honest,

  even when your stomach is in knots

  and you cannot speak.

  You can be in love at 3am or 5pm,

  and sometimes it is with someone else

  and other times it is with the way the sky looks

  on a Saturday afternoon.

  You will make hard decisions and easy decisions,

  but they are all important.

  Appreciate those little moments on the beach

  with a beer and a good sunset.

  I’m so sorry for anyone who has ever hurt you,

  but please don’t close your heart to love.

  You need love, and love needs you.

  You are the sun and the moon and every star

  and you deserve someone who will cross the universe for you.

  Forgive, even if you are angry.

  Forgive, even if they broke all their promises to you.

  Say it: I forgive you.

  You don’t even realise how beautiful you are, do you?

  If I could tell you this every day, for the rest of your life,

  I would.

  Even if I do not know your name and we never meet,

  you are beautiful.

  You can be miles apart,

  but this will never measure the way you feel

  when your best friend says exactly what you need to hear.

  Don’t stay bitter for too long. Learn, move on and grow.

  Remember to try and try again.

  If someone makes you nervous, you probably make them nervous too.

  Why do you always think you are bothering someone?

  Stop that.

  Do not change your inner values and who you truly are for anyone.

  Validation on the Internet can be a dangerous thing;

  try to stay humble.

  If someone does not appreciate your story or cherish you,

  this does not mean that someone else won’t.

  You will find them one day.

  They are probably wondering when they will find you, too.

  Life can be chaotic and sometimes people will hurt you,

  but in the middle of all your loud thoughts and sleepless nights,

  just remember that magic grows in flowers,

  the sun can make your heart race after the rain,

  and whenever you can make someone smile,

  you will forget all the reasons you were ever sad.

  Make a list.

  Write down the most important things.

  I will give you the first:

  You.

  Some days will always be harder than others. Be patient with yourself; you have won many battles but the war will take time. You can be 17 or 78 and still make mistakes. Try not to punish yourself too much over them. You will compare yourself to others, everyone does it, but try to remember someone compares themselves to you, too. Be kinder to the thoughts in your head; you are thinking them for a reason. There will always be that person who you gave your whole heart to and it still wasn’t enough for them. But you will always be enough for yourself. And when all’s said and done, that’s the person who lives your life.

  That’s the person you have to impress.

  Be a friend to yourself, not an enemy.

  The earth has a heart and you exist somewhere inside, so if you need a reason to stay, take a moment, a deep breath, don’t go breaking the earth’s heart now.

  Trust that your body is a castle, and no matter how many wars are waged at its front gates, your castle will always remain standing.

  It makes me sad, truly, that you were made to feel as though you were annoying or stupid or that you aren’t beautiful when you talk about the things you love or that you aren’t interesting at 7pm or 5am. Your existence is important. You are important.

  The Bricklayer

  Once I met a bricklayer on a sunny afternoon

  I had only just surfaced from my deep slumber underneath the moon

  I asked him why he was building such a wall

  But he did not respond and I wondered if he’d heard me at all

  He worked until the sun dipped low to touch the skyline

  Building his wall higher, I’d never seen such a design

  “Sir,” I called but he was behind the wall

  “Sir,” I called again, but the wall was far too tall

  And then came a faint sound I barely heard

  “This is what you wanted, what you preferred!”

  But I looked at the wall looming above

  A wall keeping everything out

  Even love

  Be kind to yourself, the way you would be to someone you love.

  You weren’t always like this, were you? Once vibrant and full of life, and all it takes is too many lies, a handful of betrayals and a bucket full of hurt, and now suddenly you are wondering how someone could have been so cruel to damage your garden. So today, cover all those lies in soil, plant daisies and watch them sprout and breathe life. Take a handful of forgiveness and scatter this around too, and then pour a bucket of happiness for good measure. Now take a moment, allow your new garden to grow, heal yourself and bring yourself back to the life you have always known.

  Even on bad days and cold nights where it feels it has all but gone. You still have purpose. It has been inside you since the day you were born. A tiny little firefly born from the light of the universe. There is a world of reason inside you, an entire library of thoughts and emotions. For all the moments that steal your hope, just remember the universe intended for you to happen. You have purpose.

  Things might not get better tomorrow. You may have many tomorrows and nothing changes. But that is not the point. The point of moving through all these tomorrows is to get to the one tomorrow that finally does get better.

  Throw Down Your Scissors

  Throw down your scissors, your skin is much too strong

  Throw down your scissors, even when tears flow all night long

  Throw down your scissors, there are other ways to let the light in

  Throw down your scissors, let your faith seep deep into your skin

  Throw down your scissors, you are loved in every way

  Throw down your scissors, stay here with us

  and fight another day

  I am sure they will make the road to recovery seem clean. They’ll use words to make healing seem pretty and pretend the bandages don’t feel heavy and still cause pain. Your sadness is never going to be neat and tidy and on some days you might even wonder how you’re possibly going to pick up every shattered piece on the floor when burying your soul seems much easier. There will be moments where you have to convince yourself that feeling is better than being numb and that your aching bones are strong enough to carry on. There will be times things feel upside down and you are spinning on an axis that is never balanced. There will be days where you take steps backwards and those new steps forward feel very far away. But even in the difficulty you are still taking steps, you are still making progress. And for every bump along the way, just remember you have come this far, might as well keep going.

  You will always be somebody to someone else. You will always need other peop
le. And coffee, you will always need good coffee too.

  Of course there will be moments when you feel as though you are completely out of options. But there will be one option to always start with: forgive yourself.

  There is always going to be chaos. Humans are made to be messy. Yet even in the hurricane there is a calm that will radiate. It spreads after any disaster, and the pieces are picked back up again.

  There is a great deal of difficulty

  in surviving

  And it starts with choosing to feel

  the good

  and especially the bad

  You’ll end up surprising yourself you know. Like how strong you are and how much your heart can grow. One minute you’re in pieces and broken on the floor and the next you’re putting on your shoes and heading out the door. Remember all those that smiled at you and who told you to have a good day. They are the little gifts sent to you reminding you to stay.

  These are for you

  Describe her, they said. So I tried to think of all the things I could say about you. Like the colour of your hair and the freckles across your back. How you collect notebooks in your spare time and the way you sound in the morning. From your lips, your curves and your thighs, to the generosity in your heart and the fire in your eyes. But when I think about it, I couldn’t quite describe you the way you deserve to be described. Because in the moments you look at me, I love you more than I will ever be able to epitomize.

  I’m living a life where things are temporary,

  but with you,

  all my walls have caved in

  and I know that you are worth it;

  you are anything but ordinary.

  For every time you murmur my name,

  take my hand and run your lips over mine,

  you should know I am falling ever harder.

  And when you look at me with those eyes,

  I know inside you are falling just the same.

  So beautiful girl, come as you are

  with every stitch and every scar.

  I have found everything in you;

  I’m so crazy in love with you.

  I can’t remember what it was like not to know you. I am not sure if this is because we have met before. As though we have seen each other in a different time and life and maybe your soul is the one soul I keep running into. Or maybe it’s just because my life before you wasn’t nearly as exciting. All I know is when we met, we spent the afternoon in front of a beautiful view and yet all I could do was look at you.

  She has hair that reminds me of the sun. Sometimes when I kiss her it feels like the earth is moving and I am moving with it. She has green eyes that are sometimes light and sometimes dark depending on the time of day. She smiles like she knows what you are thinking. Her skin feels soft, but rough across the tops of her hands. Her fingers knot through mine in the middle of the night. She smells like dusk after a thunderstorm and I am not sure how she looks so beautiful in the mornings, but she does. She has freckles in places that make her body look like the sky and they are her stars, and even if my soul knew hers in a thousand different lifetimes, I am sure I would fall in love with her in each one.

  Just listen to her. Listen to her heart, her mind, her body and her soul. And if you are lucky enough to find a soul that is beautiful, make sure you tell her.

  I wish that I could give you more

  Because that’s what you deserve

  While I’m sailing around the world

  Please always know

  That you are who I call home

  If you were to ever leave

  I am not sure what I would do

  Because you are all I need

  This is my life

  and I will fall for you every day

  because you are my love

  and I see you in everything.

  There may come times where things just seem hard

  and you’re running on empty,

  walking through days blind.

  There may come moments where things seem too much

  like you keep coming up last,

  and you’re losing your touch.

  But you are my life, and I’ll spend every single day

  reminding you that you are capable

  you are smart and strong

  and you will find your way.

  Hearts can hurt, minds can ache

  the world may seem far too big

  and everything feels at stake.

  But you will reach your dreams

  no matter how difficult it seems,

  and I will always believe in you

  in all that you ever set out to do.

  Our skin will only be young once. All the moments we spend naked under the sheets, passion running high and blood pumping through our veins, will be memories. But forty years from now, you’ll still make my heart race when your hand touches mine and my passion will always be you.

  It will be dawn soon. The sun will rise and the grass will cough in the morning dew. And I am excited, stirring from my sleep, because in the early light, I get to look at you.

  I wish there were a better way to tell you how much I love you. To write it in the sky or dip all my feelings in gold. But the truth is it’s much simpler than all of those things. All I know is that I wake up each morning and I can never find the words to explain how much I feel for you.

  Something in the way you wore your hair that night, or maybe it was the dress you had on and how it fit all your curves in all the right places. And while I was busy trying not to stare, you were ordering coffee, and the shape of your lips and even the way you spoke was enough to knock me out.

  Here I am after all this time, hopelessly and madly in love with you.

  Perhaps I am old fashioned, but when I think of you and I, I think of a house in the suburbs with nothing but warmth inside, and I think of spending all my days taking care of you and facing every challenge together in life’s ever-changing tide.

  Sometimes when I’m coming home, she’ll wait by the door and kiss me under the fading light of the day. She’ll say it’s because she forgot to leave the key out, but when she looks at me, I know it is because I am loved. There was a time before we had met and all my stars had burnt out, until one day she found me and suddenly there was no longer any doubt. There she was with a smile in the early morning and I was in love again. I dream with her about the house we will have and all our days growing old. Someday when our skin is worn and our hair is grey, I will still look at her like she is the sun on a rainy day. I will never say I’m sorry for the way I feel about her, because she is all I need. And every single time I look at her, I know we’ll make it anywhere. She is honest and true and fair and my heart belongs to her with every memory we share. Even if she never understands why she means so much, I will spend all my days falling more in love with her.

  I am flooded with your absence. I drown in how much I miss you. How do you enrage a storm of loneliness inside me? In the afternoon, I walk across fields of flowers and I see young couples together and in love. I declare my love for you to the poppies and ask them to bring you home, and in the night I long for you and write these sad little poems.

  We forget things.

  Wallets, keys, days of the week.

  Sometimes we forget important things.

  Birthdays, anniversaries, meetings.

  But I will never forget my love for you.

  It has settled in my mind so deeply, I dream of you every night. It has wound so tightly around my heart, it beats to the sound of your name. It has nestled forever in my lungs, I breathe you in and out.

  I forget things, but never you.

  It seems silly what your name does to me. I love the way it looks on a card I have scrawled for your birthday. I love the way it looks in a letter I have scribbled in my car. I love the way it looks when it lights up my phone. I love the way it sounds when asked if you will be there too. Perhaps I will meet others with the same name, but none will ring so loudly in my heart as it d
oes when they are speaking about you.

  Sometimes when she is sleeping, I think about waking her up. I know that this is selfish but I crave the sound of her voice.

  Sometimes when she is talking, I interrupt to kiss her. I know that this is selfish but I crave the taste of her lips.

  Sometimes when she is not looking, I steal her sweaters. I know that this is selfish but I crave the way she smells.

  Sometimes I hold her face in my hands so she cannot pull away. I know that this is selfish but I crave the way she looks at me.

  Sometimes when we are driving, I will take the long way home. I know that this is selfish but I crave the touch of her hand in mine.

  Sometimes I cannot control the patterns of my thoughts or the aching in my chest, because I crave her always. I crave her everything.

  That’s the best part, when the sun dips low in the afternoon and I get to lay down with you and tell you all about my day. It won’t matter how you’re dressed or how you look. It won’t matter the things we can afford or the parties we get invited to. I just care that you listen, even if sometimes you are listening for hours.

  My heart has never been very sensible.