three (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
threeplusfire) wrote2007-02-28 05:16 pm
threeplusfire) wrote2007-02-28 05:16 pm
I swore that I could survive any storm, oh then he let me go
And when I promised my hand
He promised me back
Snow Cherries from France
All that summer
We traveled the world
Never leaving his own back garden
Girls I didn't know
Just what it could be
Oh but he let me go sailing
- "Snow Cherries from France" by Tori Amos
Music is like a shot, a little bit to get you higher or bring you down. I write a lot of posts in my head depending on what I'm listening to at any given moment. Having the iPod has brought back the ability to constantly soundtrack and edit my life's narrative focus. If you can't quote song lyrics and be angsty on your livejournal, where can you really?
(Seriously, this is long and took me three hours to write while at my desk.)
Hate, hate your enemies
Save, save your friends
Find, find your place
Speak, speak the truth
- "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter" by Nirvana
I spent a large portion of my younger years with music on the brain, pretending I was making a movie or a music video. In middle school, my hair was long and I could put my headphones in my ears and run the cord down the back of my shirt to the Walkman in my pocket. I listened to tape copies of Nirvana's Bleach, and Nevermind pretty obsessively in grades seven and eight. I found that perfect volume where I could still respond if called on in class but the music was omnipresent. It was soothing, and took the edge off what was a rather unpleasant reality in those years.
Man I ain't changed
but I know I ain't the same
Somewhere here in between the city walls and dying dreams
I think your death
it must be killing me
- "One Headlight" by the Wallflowers
In high school I had to start riding the bus, and I listened to Live's Throwing Copper while fantasizing about running away from home. When I started punishing myself for every single thing, it was Nine Inch Nails all the time. Sometimes I would listen to their EP Broken and run until I was falling down. It was unpleasant, I hated it and it hurt - all the things I thought I needed right then. All that adolescent dreaming focused on getting out, getting away, getting someone to admit that they wounded me but that I was so much better and more deserving.
When I overdosed, I was listening to Kraftwerk's Computer World album. John Bryant introduced me to them, and the title track had this absurdly hopeful sweep of synthesizers that made me cry and hope that dying was going to be better than living. One of the very few memories I have is of screaming at the emergency responder not to turn the stereo off and lurching forward to hit the volume button higher. I've never listened to that band since then.
If you love enough
You lie a lot
Guess they did in Camelot
- "Jackie's Strength" by Tori Amos
When I went to college I rode the commuter express bus down to campus. I was too skittish to drive and there's not anywhere to park anyhow. The bus meant thirty minutes to sleep, to do homework, or to stare out the window while I listened to that same Walkman. I listened to Information Society, Garbage, Tori Amos over and over while my forehead leaning on the window glass. I composed music videos in my head that I can barely remember now. I was still hoping to be somewhere else, someone else entirely.
I started listening to a lot of different music between thirteen and twenty three because people I liked listened to it. A few people gave me mix tapes and bought me cds. Sometimes this was good, sometimes it was bad. Of all the people I ever fell for, the two most disparate people influenced my musical tastes. Ironically, both of them listened to music that was full of rage in distinctly different ways. I think I prefer the black metal to the dirty punk rock in the end.
For all the things I'm losing
I might as well resign myself to try and make a change
- "I Wish I Was a Girl" by the Counting Crows
When I graduated from college, I freaked out and ran away overseas. I had a discman by then, and listened to cds all the time on the trip. Sometimes the Czechs on the street would look at me funny and I would realize that I was singing out loud. There goes that weird American girl again, wandering down the street singing tunelessly. For those couple months I listened to the soundtrack to Singles, Remy Zero's This Golden Hum and Counting Crows' August & Everything After. I also listened to this odd European pop singer that was always playing in the internet cafe, and Nightwish albums I bought for Gene. I would stand on the balcony of my room, back pressed up to the Soviet era concrete wall eight floors up and smoke while I watched the sun go down on the chestnut trees.
I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone
- "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day
I can still remember the night I heard this song for the first time. It was dark, after six in the evening in the early days of winter. I was on my way home from therapy sitting at the northbound light at St. John's. I turned it up, alone in the car. This will sound overwrought and absurd, but it is the honest to god I swear truth.
When I heard this song I knew. I knew deep down in my heart, and the force of it was enough to make me start shaking as I turned the volume higher. I knew that my marriage was not going to last, I knew things would fall apart. I knew that I was still alone, and that I would always be alone. It was sort of shattering. I sat in the car in the parking lot of my already dangerous apartment complex for several long moments. Because I had to pull myself together, go inside and face the last months of my life with my husband. It was hard and strange, and I think of that moment every time I hear the song no matter where I am.
And I, can't stand the thought of life
spent without your wicked eyes
spent without our precious fights
spent without your tainted lies
spent without a restless night
- "Share This Poison" by Razed in Black
In the summer of 2005, I bought two cds I listened to endlessly in my car. One was Damaged by Razed in Black, and the other was Music from the Succubus Club. I think it was the only music I listened to, aside from whatever Tyler would have in his car. Angry, miserable, goth club music and it was the only thing that seemed to soothe my restless mind driving too and from work. When I listen to these cds now, I can feel the hot summer air and the sense of being disconnected from everything by my own grief. It was weird.
You made a mistake
You made a mistake
You should have left me dead
I can hardly stand that you aren't mine
- "Made a Mistake" by Sugarcult
You've made me happier
than I'd been by far
- "You could be Happy" by Snow Patrol
I feel a little bit older
I feel a little bit colder
I know if destiny's kind
I've got the rest of my life
But my heart, it don't beat
It don't beat the way it used to
- "Reasons Unknown" by The Killers
I never know what to say when someone asks me how I am these days. I do feel older.
I don't know what to say. I could say that there is a part of me that believes I will always be alone. That I will never be good enough for anyone to want to keep no matter what I am or what I do. But to say that might give the impression that I am sunk in my grief or that I do not have some degree of happiness. I could say that I marvel at my own capacity for survival, no matter how painful or how long the process. Some days, I am so glad to be alive that it hurts to breathe and I wish that these moments would go one forever.
Nothing is ever simple. Nothing is ever black or white in this place.
But I do keep listening to my headphones, and I do spend a lot of time thinking about blocking out a movie about me while I run the soundtrack over the opening credits. It is a habit I probably won't ever grow out of, and I don't mind that so much.
He promised me back
Snow Cherries from France
All that summer
We traveled the world
Never leaving his own back garden
Girls I didn't know
Just what it could be
Oh but he let me go sailing
- "Snow Cherries from France" by Tori Amos
Music is like a shot, a little bit to get you higher or bring you down. I write a lot of posts in my head depending on what I'm listening to at any given moment. Having the iPod has brought back the ability to constantly soundtrack and edit my life's narrative focus. If you can't quote song lyrics and be angsty on your livejournal, where can you really?
(Seriously, this is long and took me three hours to write while at my desk.)
Hate, hate your enemies
Save, save your friends
Find, find your place
Speak, speak the truth
- "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter" by Nirvana
I spent a large portion of my younger years with music on the brain, pretending I was making a movie or a music video. In middle school, my hair was long and I could put my headphones in my ears and run the cord down the back of my shirt to the Walkman in my pocket. I listened to tape copies of Nirvana's Bleach, and Nevermind pretty obsessively in grades seven and eight. I found that perfect volume where I could still respond if called on in class but the music was omnipresent. It was soothing, and took the edge off what was a rather unpleasant reality in those years.
Man I ain't changed
but I know I ain't the same
Somewhere here in between the city walls and dying dreams
I think your death
it must be killing me
- "One Headlight" by the Wallflowers
In high school I had to start riding the bus, and I listened to Live's Throwing Copper while fantasizing about running away from home. When I started punishing myself for every single thing, it was Nine Inch Nails all the time. Sometimes I would listen to their EP Broken and run until I was falling down. It was unpleasant, I hated it and it hurt - all the things I thought I needed right then. All that adolescent dreaming focused on getting out, getting away, getting someone to admit that they wounded me but that I was so much better and more deserving.
When I overdosed, I was listening to Kraftwerk's Computer World album. John Bryant introduced me to them, and the title track had this absurdly hopeful sweep of synthesizers that made me cry and hope that dying was going to be better than living. One of the very few memories I have is of screaming at the emergency responder not to turn the stereo off and lurching forward to hit the volume button higher. I've never listened to that band since then.
If you love enough
You lie a lot
Guess they did in Camelot
- "Jackie's Strength" by Tori Amos
When I went to college I rode the commuter express bus down to campus. I was too skittish to drive and there's not anywhere to park anyhow. The bus meant thirty minutes to sleep, to do homework, or to stare out the window while I listened to that same Walkman. I listened to Information Society, Garbage, Tori Amos over and over while my forehead leaning on the window glass. I composed music videos in my head that I can barely remember now. I was still hoping to be somewhere else, someone else entirely.
I started listening to a lot of different music between thirteen and twenty three because people I liked listened to it. A few people gave me mix tapes and bought me cds. Sometimes this was good, sometimes it was bad. Of all the people I ever fell for, the two most disparate people influenced my musical tastes. Ironically, both of them listened to music that was full of rage in distinctly different ways. I think I prefer the black metal to the dirty punk rock in the end.
For all the things I'm losing
I might as well resign myself to try and make a change
- "I Wish I Was a Girl" by the Counting Crows
When I graduated from college, I freaked out and ran away overseas. I had a discman by then, and listened to cds all the time on the trip. Sometimes the Czechs on the street would look at me funny and I would realize that I was singing out loud. There goes that weird American girl again, wandering down the street singing tunelessly. For those couple months I listened to the soundtrack to Singles, Remy Zero's This Golden Hum and Counting Crows' August & Everything After. I also listened to this odd European pop singer that was always playing in the internet cafe, and Nightwish albums I bought for Gene. I would stand on the balcony of my room, back pressed up to the Soviet era concrete wall eight floors up and smoke while I watched the sun go down on the chestnut trees.
I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone
- "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day
I can still remember the night I heard this song for the first time. It was dark, after six in the evening in the early days of winter. I was on my way home from therapy sitting at the northbound light at St. John's. I turned it up, alone in the car. This will sound overwrought and absurd, but it is the honest to god I swear truth.
When I heard this song I knew. I knew deep down in my heart, and the force of it was enough to make me start shaking as I turned the volume higher. I knew that my marriage was not going to last, I knew things would fall apart. I knew that I was still alone, and that I would always be alone. It was sort of shattering. I sat in the car in the parking lot of my already dangerous apartment complex for several long moments. Because I had to pull myself together, go inside and face the last months of my life with my husband. It was hard and strange, and I think of that moment every time I hear the song no matter where I am.
And I, can't stand the thought of life
spent without your wicked eyes
spent without our precious fights
spent without your tainted lies
spent without a restless night
- "Share This Poison" by Razed in Black
In the summer of 2005, I bought two cds I listened to endlessly in my car. One was Damaged by Razed in Black, and the other was Music from the Succubus Club. I think it was the only music I listened to, aside from whatever Tyler would have in his car. Angry, miserable, goth club music and it was the only thing that seemed to soothe my restless mind driving too and from work. When I listen to these cds now, I can feel the hot summer air and the sense of being disconnected from everything by my own grief. It was weird.
You made a mistake
You made a mistake
You should have left me dead
I can hardly stand that you aren't mine
- "Made a Mistake" by Sugarcult
You've made me happier
than I'd been by far
- "You could be Happy" by Snow Patrol
I feel a little bit older
I feel a little bit colder
I know if destiny's kind
I've got the rest of my life
But my heart, it don't beat
It don't beat the way it used to
- "Reasons Unknown" by The Killers
I never know what to say when someone asks me how I am these days. I do feel older.
I don't know what to say. I could say that there is a part of me that believes I will always be alone. That I will never be good enough for anyone to want to keep no matter what I am or what I do. But to say that might give the impression that I am sunk in my grief or that I do not have some degree of happiness. I could say that I marvel at my own capacity for survival, no matter how painful or how long the process. Some days, I am so glad to be alive that it hurts to breathe and I wish that these moments would go one forever.
Nothing is ever simple. Nothing is ever black or white in this place.
But I do keep listening to my headphones, and I do spend a lot of time thinking about blocking out a movie about me while I run the soundtrack over the opening credits. It is a habit I probably won't ever grow out of, and I don't mind that so much.
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