Every Word You Cannot Say Flashcards
[POEM] Hurt
Do you know why this hurts?”
“Why does it matter if we know?
Would knowing make it hurt less?”
“Maybe.”
“It hurts because we have hearts.
It hurts because we’re human and we need to hurt this way, or we’d be something else.
[POEM] Ticket Keeper
-re find this one in the book, it’s about the person who keeps their tickets-
[POEM] I love you.
“You say I love you but we both know, when you say it, you are trying to remember the first time you said it, because every time you say it after that, is just a shadow of that time. And we know we change, we accept that, so I’m hoping that one day, we change into the kind of people who mean it again.
So I say, ‘I love you’ but I mean, ‘I believe I will love you again, one day.’”
[QUOTE] Kindness is not…
Kindness is not a currency, and if you treat it like one, then that is not kindness.
[POEM] Both the monster and the person
In your head, in the dream, you are both the monster and the person the monster is chasing.
You are your fear and your love and you are the embodiment of all the things you feel.
Only you hold you back, or push you forward.*
*Sometimes, when we’re awake, themonster is still there.
Maybe we can’t see him as clearly, maybe he’s not as obvious as he usually is, but he’s there, somewhere, saying:
“You are not good enough.
You do not deserve to be loved the way you want to be loved.
Something will always be wrong with you, no matter how much you try and fix yourself.
You will always be looking for something you cannot find.”
And our gut reaction when we hear the monster say these things, is to run.
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 need to stop running, turn around andhug—the monster. Because you are the monster. And the hero—the person running.
And everything between them.
You need to pull the monster close and whisper in its ear, no matter how scared you are, no matter how ugly the monster seems on the outside, no matter how much you think you can’t, and say:
“You are good enough.
I’m sorry you’re afraid.
You deserved to be loved the way you want to be loved.
There is nothing in you that needs to be fixed.
The thing you’ve been looking for, has been Here,
with you, all along.
I am sorry I ran away from you. I am sorry you’re afraid. I love you, honestly and sincerely, without end.”
.How?
Living is easy, you just look for the good in
the blades of grass
between your toes.
(Remember what I said: Listen for the poem.)
You just try and find something in everything, a myriad of colors exploding outward from the center, and if you open up your heart, it looks like unstirred paint in there, it looks like someone loved you long ago and forgot to stop loving you, even though you expected them to.
It looks like a way to be,
when there’s no way left to be.
[POEM] There is a temple in our hands when we hold them together.
Who could say,
“Show me the fix, the thing you did to make yourself whole, before you were broken.
Where is the God of everything that heals?
Can you pray to him?”
(What you feel is not brokeness, it is the desire to love yourself how you were meant to be loved.
It is your heart crying out.)
So pray to the God of everything that heals
—there is a temple in our hands when we hold
them together.
[POEM] So, Go
Go find a pen
that only writes good things
about you,
go find the paper that hears it,
go find the person who loves you for who you are and wouldn’t change a single hair on your body, go find the God of good deeds in the tips of a flower’s petals,
go find the God of good conversation
at the edge of a tea mug,
go find yourself in the strange place
where all things live,
go find a way to be like dust in
light, suspended above the
carpet, go find a new way to be that doesn’t make you feel like you’re trying to be
anything at all.
We All [POEM]
And we’re all looking for the one strange trick that’ll make us happy. We’re all hoping it’s something we can buy or something that will change us just by thinking about it, like being in the now, or letting go
or enjoying what you have
or setting a goal
or taking up a hobby.
We all miss something or someone we’re not supposed to miss. We’re all pretending to be something that we secretly don’t want to be. We all think we know what we want sometimes and we think we’re dedicated and strong enough to get it, until we’re distracted. We all stay up late at night writing sentences in lists that start with the words “we all” in the hope that whatever we feel, we don’t feel it alone. Don’t we?
The words I must say [POEM]
You hurt me.
You were meant to be kinder than you were.
You were meant to be better.
And I was owed more than this.
And you let me down, when I thought you
were the only one who wouldn’t.
But I will throw everything that hurts to the ground
and leave it where it lies.
But I will carry on, despite the world.
But I will become what I needed.
Because I am, and I will, and I can.
And so, I forgive you.
I forgive you.
I forgive you.
I forgive you.
I forgive you.
I forgive you.
I forgive you.
Because I owe myself better.
And in the quietest moments of the world,
I can say that I love me.
I owe myself the best of me.
And no one can take that away.
Because everything I feel is real.
And I belong to the goodness, kindness,
and love that moves me.
I do the hard work of protecting my heart,
from the people who would hurt it.
