I had your back, I held you up, I told you you were good enough
It was never reciprocated, you kept affection and yourself apart
You fed your love to me like crumbs to pigeons in the park
Sometimes I think it satisfied to see me begging like a dog
I was enamoured, you were king, I gave my everything
Because sometimes you showed me just a hint of you within
For just a moment I romanticised the notion
I could take away the torment, I could love you like they never did

- Darren Hayes, "Unlovable"


The first time I ever read the lyrics for this song (long before I heard them) this verse made me burst out in uncontrollable sobs. It expressed so well the anger and frustration and pain I was feeling at the time.

I am relistening to this album now and it hurts, almost, it's such a dark album but so beautiful. It's so raw and honest, so clearly coming out of such a bad place -- a place I think too many of us know too well -- but it's shot through with hope and possibility at the same time. I don't think I saw that hope the first few times I heard the album (and I didn't even hear it until about a year after I first encountered the lyrics). I do now. As I listen I wait for those moments of heartwrenching beauty amid the dark, and it's hard, if I'm listening and walking at the same time, not to stop in my tracks, close my eyes, and glory in them as they come and fade. And sometimes those moments, and other moments in the album, still almost bring tears to my eyes. Some of the songs still call up bad memories and unpleasant emotions, but I love them anyway, because now I can see the promise of renewal shining through the hurt.

If you question what I would do
To get over and be with you
Lift you up over everything
To light up my room

-Barenaked Ladies, "Light Up My Room"


This is what my heart is saying to Jason always. I know that that sounds ridiculously corny, but it's true... there is nothing I wouldn't do, very little I wouldn't give up, to spend the rest of my life with him. He is the light of my life. (And I hope you know that, sweetheart.)

Whenever I sing this song, I'm always smiling when I sing the chorus, because I'm thinking of him.

And in the night, I could be helpless,
I could be lonely, sleeping without you.
And in the day, everything's complex,
There's nothing simple, when I'm not around you.

- The Cranberries, "When You're Gone"


You know when you've sort of gotten used to sleeping with your lover, and then you have to go back and sleep in your own bed without him/her?

...Yeah.

I get lonely sometimes when I'm sleeping alone, these days.

I never thought I'd want to be with somebody so much that even seeing them for a little while every day wouldn't be enough. We're moving in together next fall... but still, there are vacations, and then we're not going to be close to each other for at least a year, and God only knows how we're going to handle that. (We will handle it somehow, I know... I just don't know how.) I miss him when it's been more than a few hours since I've seen him last.

...we're not codependent. I swear.

reach down your hand in your pocket
pull out some hope for me
it's been a long day, always ain't that right

- matchbox twenty, "Long Day"


Just a pretty good expression of how I've been feeling at the end of most days lately. It's getting better... but I've got some time to go till I'm back to good (to shamelessly quote matchbox twenty again ;) ).

So break me shake me hate me take me over
When the madness stops then you will be alone
Just break me shake me hate me take me over
When the madness stops then you will be alone

- Savage Garden, "Break Me"


I guess that this isn't a response to the lyrics themselves, so much as their emotion...

My dog died recently (three days ago, in fact). I was at my boyfriend's for the weekend, so there was comfort there, but I had to go back to my room and I was feeling pretty shaken up right before I left. I was listening to SG's self-titled album on my way back, and when "Break Me" came on and the chorus started playing, there was just this huge feeling of release -- like when the music went from soft and restrained to the furious explosion of the chorus, all of the shit I was feeling exploded right along with it. Obviously it didn't fix everything, but I'm remembering these days how much small things can really help, and this was definitely a small, helpful thing.