The Aide-mémoire

I was happy when I wrote this.

The Strangers Are Lovers

As we walked past the graves, and the mourners, and out those tall iron gates, I asked you why you were crying; you never even knew the boy.
"I know," you replied. "That's why I'm crying."

The Higher and Lower

The people above you might, in the future, be below you.
The people below you might, in the future, be above you.
That's why you always treat everyone, as though they're beside you.

The Sublimation

An act of turning into something you never expected to become.

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

Stop telling people you're fine. You aren't fine. You haven't been fine for years; you haven't been fine since you started piecing this world together. It's all such a mess, isn't it? Everyone seems to have lost sight of their own inhumanity. You haven't been fine since the first time you felt powerless. I remember that day. You fell to the floor of your bedroom and cried for two days straight before anyone came looking for you. You were crying for the world that day, and for the loss of your own obliviousness. It's almost eight years since then, and now you might finally be ready, ready to help mend this place that has lost its way. You will work every day for the rest of your life, trying to be honest when you say, "I'm fine."

The Order of Events

I wake. I think of you. I eat. I think of you. I write. I think of you. I work. I think of you. I sleep.
In that order.

The Times We've Had

It's just the way we're all so lost and afraid to admit it. It's just the way everyone's stumbling around in the dark. It's just that the first thing they do to babies is cut the first link to another human being we ever have. It's just that you never understand what I mean. It's just that it shouldn't be this hard.
It's just that it gets to me sometimes.

Don't worry. Hold on to something you love and keep going. And always remember: this too shall pass.

The Eventuality of Everything

This is what we know for certain:

They lived happily ever after.
And sadly ever after.
And not necessarily together.
In the meantime, she wrote more poetry and learnt to put her words to music. He taught himself to speak German and cook noodles.
A boy killed himself because no one understood him, and another perfectly secure one stepped out into the road at the wrong moment and was run down by a man driving his pregnant wife to hospital.
He didn't stop.

The World's Handyman

What if you've got it wrong? What if, now that the world's so broken, it's not that we've got to find the pieces and fix it - it's that, maybe, we're the pieces. And what we've got to do is all come together now, and that's how we stop the breaking.

The Friends We've Become

I love you more than words and a picture can describe. But I'll try.

The Pros and The Cons

For everyone who recieves, someone else must give.
For everyone who wins, someone else must lose.
For everyone who lives, someone else must die.

Sometimes you'll recieve and sometimes you'll have to give, and sometimes you'll win but more often you'll lose.
Just know that you spend only one day of your life on your deathbed. You live a lot more than you die.

The Backwards

You should stop worrying if there's life after death, and start making sure you live before death.

The Still

And our world is moving constantly. You just have to stop. And feel it.

The Seemingly Obvious

You're beautiful.

The Dedication

This is for you,

who doesn't have all the answers -

just the ones that matter.