The snooze button came in handy this morning. I couldn't pull myself out of bed without dragging some emotional burden around with me. Here it is, nearly 8pm, and I can't quite put my finger on it. This feeling of...what? What is this? I'm not hopeless, I'm not depressed, I'm not crying (but I want to). In fact, I probably should. The unfortunate part about it is that I only cry when I'm angry. Or when someone dies. Or, sometimes, when someone comes back.
You know how the memory of a person can take the air out of you and leave you with an involuntary urge to hunch over forward into a fetal position just to keep in what air you have left? It's exhausting to me. My ribs will hurt. My back will ache. And then I'll lose my breath just when the lyrics of an incredibly beautiful song I've listened to hundreds of times finally make sense at exactly the right moment (or wrong moment, depending on how you look at it).
I'm not the guy in this song. I'm not even the girl in this song. I'm the girl who was with the guy who really wanted to be with the other girl. This was his song for her and I had to listen to it. It's a year of my life that I wouldn't mind forgetting, only because I was never really a huge part of his life. He said I was, but in the end I discovered (or finally realized, as the case may be) that I was only there until she chose to be there. That's when I walked away and learned that sometimes doing the right thing doesn't always mean doing the easiest thing.
And it starts, sometime around midnight.
Or at least that’s when you lose yourself
for a minute or two.
As you stand, under the bar lights.
And the band plays some song
about forgetting yourself for a while.
And the piano’s this melancholy soundtrack to her smile.
And that white dress she’s wearing
you haven’t seen her for a while.
But you know, that she’s watching.
She’s laughing, she’s turning.
She’s holding her tonic like a cross*.
The room’s suddenly spinning.
She walks up and asks how you are.
So you can smell her perfume.
You can see her lying naked in your arms.
And so there’s a change, in your emotions.
And all these memories come rushing
like feral waves to your mind.
Of the curl of your bodies,
like two perfect circles entwined.
And you feel hopeless and homeless
and lost in the haze of the wine.
Then she leaves, with someone you don’t know.
But she makes sure you saw her.
She looks right at you and bolts.
As she walks out the door,
your blood boiling
your stomach in ropes.
Oh and when your friends say,
“What is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Then you walk, under the streetlights.
And you’re too drunk to notice,
that everyone is staring at you.
You just don’t care what you look like,
the world is falling around you.
You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You just have to see her.
You know that she’ll break you in two.
The Airborne Toxic Event - "Sometime Around Midnight"
I still can't cry.
This isn't why I woke up this morning with a black cloud hovering over me. And like I said, I've heard this song hundreds of times and it never hit me like that before. Maybe I needed it to so I could listen to what someone else is saying, in someone else's words. It's not even that I have feelings for this person anymore. I think what grabbed me the most in these lyrics was there are no fluffy puppies and sparkly butterflies. I mean, how fluffy-puppies-and-sparkly-butterflies are these words:
Then she leaves, with someone you don’t know.
But she makes sure you saw her.
She looks right at you and bolts.
It is such a beautiful song, though.
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