Author: iainthomas

I can’t really speak about the horrible thing that happened out of respect to the people involved.

Everything is still very raw and it will be for a while.

It happened to someone and the love of my life was caught in the blast zone. It was a quiet atom bomb.

The love of my life flew to New York to be closer to the point of impact. I soon followed when we realised how bad it was.

We were arranging tickets home for several different people in a high pressure situation and managed to get business class tickets for all of us, except me, as there were no more seats left.

To the crew on Sunday of the South African Airways flight from JFK in New York to Johannesburg, if you do not remember me, I was the one who you kept telling

“I’m sorry Sir, you’re not allowed in business class as you’re an economy class passenger.”

The fact that I was trying to spend a few minutes every now and again with my family during one of the toughest situations we’ve ever been through seemed to not matter to you one bit, even though we made sure you were completely aware of the situation.

I was the one holding onto the one crying in the galley.

I don’t care that my TV set didn’t work or that your economy class would be classified as a form of torture if the United Nations were ever to play any attention to it. I would’ve been ok water skiing back home.

I care that you couldn’t find the compassion, the basic human decency to make a simple exception during one of the hardest times my loved ones and I have ever had to go through.

To you I say this:

If you have a mother or a father, I sincerely hope you never, ever have to go through what we have.

And if you do, I hope you don’t crew their flight home.

I am in New Jersey on a family emergency. I only available intermittently if at all, so please understand if I don’t respond to you. Thank you to everyone that’s been around, I am incredibly lucky to have the circle of friends and family that I do.

It will continue. Horrible things have happened and I need to be there with her.

I’m going to go back to college to study engineering.

I’m going to study medicine and find out

how those little pads they put on sick people work.

I’m going to stay up all night studying

until I know absolutely everything there is to know

about bodies and wires

and then I’m going to build a machine that lets me take someone else’s pain 

and I will take everything you’re feeling

away from you

I will take

every piece of broken glass in your heart

and put it into mine

because you have become a bigger part of me

than I am to myself  

because being able to take your pain for you

is the only thing that’ll make me feel better.

So I’m going back to college. 

The big wooden heart
We keep in the hallway
Fell over and made the loudest noise
And I cried

I was dreaming
I was driving down the highway
With the top down
And each bump in the road
Was a kick drum
And I was without you
And it felt like I was
Covered in flames

I woke up
When the wooden heart fell
And had a shower
And the post-it notes
You left on the mirror
Fell
Like leaves in a river

Wake up and come home
I want to tell you
It’ll all be ok

You’re the only one I’ve told
Why I can’t tell anyone
Anything
At
All

I’ve read every book in this house
Listened to every song
I’ve played all these games before
And I don’t have the guts to start
Building a model ship without you

If there’s something in this house
That’ll make me happy
Without you
I haven’t found it yet

And every stranger at the mall
Looks at me and asks

“Who are you missing? Why are you here?”

And I wish there was a way to eat alone, with other people, without them seeing you.

And when you drink whiskey out the bottle, the hill you’re standing on gets steeper.

I wrote down a sentence
“A poem is just a song you don’t sing,”
And I think I’ll make that one a song
And I wish I could tell you that in person

There’s snow on the mountains
It’s beautiful, crisp and sunny in Cape Town

I hope it’s better in New York.

Amanda, I saw the man you’re going to marry
Just hours before you
He was laying his head down
To sleep

(he said)

“Moon, tell Amanda I saw you and remind her that when she sees you,
she must remember that our eyes saw the same light,
(no matter how far apart
we are,
the light,
is,
the,
same).”

Amanda, the man you’re going to marry
feeds the dogs and the cat
and he doesn’t mind
because he spends his time
thinking
of
you

(he said)

“Moon, tell Amanda that time passes differently, it goes slower when we’re far
and too fast when we’re not,
things are always changing,
(but at least,
the moon,
stays,
the,
same).”

Amanda, the man you’re going to marry
hates how quiet the house is
and the animals crowd around
when your voice
comes
over
the
speakers

(he said)

“Moon, tell Amanda, the man who’s going to marry her
loves her,
he misses her
(and he knows
you feel,
the,
same).”

Write about something that makes you feel uncomfortable.

Write about something that makes you worry what other people will think.

Write with black ink on a white page in a quiet room, so you can hear the nib tattooing the paper.

Write with your headphones on, bashing away at the keyboard, angrily.

Write in the speech bubbles that come off a comic book character’s head.

Write a short play about the inner turmoil that dominated your misspent youth.

Write a violent critique of a self-indulgent play about the inner-turmoil that dominated a misspent youth.

Write to try and sound like Hemingway, Saul Williams, Bukowski, EE Cummings, Adam Duritz, Rumi, Alan Watts or someone else.

Write to try and capture your own unique voice and take on things.

And if one day, there’s nothing left to write about, then that’s the exciting part.

Because the need to write, will remain, and that’s when you’ll finally write

Something new.

 

Warning.

Every poem in this book has one or more words in it that have been taken from the NSA’s watch list.

A full list of the words appears at the back of this book.

By transmitting this book via email or other means,

you are liable to be tracked by the NSA as a

potential terrorist threat.

This book is dedicated to how ridiculous that is.

 

You can click on the image or here to download it as a .pdf