I…

I sit here and look down at my hands on my keyboard, and there’s a big black diamond-shaped bruise on the back of my right hand. It’s one of those deep bruises that you can barely see but which hurt like a mofo. I get them a lot when I’ve been drinking. I look at my knee, currently propping up my chin as I type, and there’s one of those nasty purple and yellow affairs. The whole of my leg, the whole of my body, speckled with bruises. No memory or reasoning behind them. I don’t recall hurting myself or getting in a fight. They merely bear witness to a clumsy overflow of misdirected energy.

My heart is bruised. It’s been thrown around, carelessly. I always chuck it at the wrong person, someone caught unawares, and they never catch it. Most often they are surprised — “what, me? but I don’t even play this game? I thought we were playing hangman, why are you throwing a ball at me?”
Hangman. You gleefully try to outwit each other, hanging man after man, erasing the stick bodies from the blackboard without a thought for the gruesome picture you’ve just created. It’s just a silly guessing game. Try to trip each other up, and every time you succeed, it’s another point for you, every time you lose, you shrug and start a new game.

What do you want, girl? Who do you want? And why do you want it?

Why are you so easy to hurt? Why are you fooled quicker and quicker every time? As you grow older, you seem to be ever more naive; the more tricks and games you learn, the more gullible and susceptible to getting played you are.

And yet you’re the biggest player of them all. So what is it, exactly, that you want? I can’t help thinking that until you work that out, until you are honest with yourself, you will not be successful.

I wish I hadn’t seen all of the realness. And all the real people are really not real at all. The more I look, the more I learn, the more I cry as I say goodbye to the way of life I had designed for me.

All I know
Is everything is not as it’s sold
but the more I grow, the less I know
And I have lived so many lives
Though I’m not old
And the more I see, the less I grow
The fewer the seeds the more I sow

All of the moments that already passed
We’ll try to go back and make them last
All of the things we want each other to be
We never will be
And that’s wonderful, and that’s life
And that’s you, baby
This is me, baby
And we are, we are, we are, we are
Free
In our love
We are free in our love

I have had this song for a while, I first downloaded it when I was still living in London and yet it’s had regular playback ever since. I found it by googling “just like smoke” lyrics — I’d never even heard of it but loved the lyrics so downloaded the song — and loved it even more.

What I originally liked was the whole “I could get stuck on you… I think I won’t” aspect. I do tend to get caught up in dudes and then get all upset about them. I admired Kris’s stance: I won’t stick to you like glue, I’ll drift by you just like smoke, I’ll leave you nothing but some dirty laundry… – and here comes the kicker – nothing but a little catch, in your throat.

I’ve been doing it more or less successfully ever since. Except in some cases, where I’ve been failing abysmally to move on (I do tend to go back and try and repeat good things when they came to an end a loong, loooong time ago… bad move, destroys the little catch in the throat!). It’s a song that always cheers me up and gives me perspective when I’m getting a little too caught up in a dude.

But today I like it for different reasons, a different set of lyrics which I’m singing to myself this week. I’m now pretty much unemployed and in a sort of rut, except that I like my rut.
So maybe last month’s paycheck is
just a jingle in my pocket
Maybe last night’s love is all a pack of lies
Maybe last year’s questions still got no answers
But I still look down when I want to see the sky
I’ve been out every day, every night, seeing people, doing things, being happy to just… be me. Spending money, not recklessly, but drinking isn’t free. Giving money to buskers. Watching bands play (some really, really good bands too). Dancing like crazy all night in tiny clubs, with random people I meet on the street.

I have no work, but I have no fear, I have no answers but… it’s ok. Gravity don’t work on me. Ground can’t hold me down.

Gravity don’t work on me
Ground don’t pull me down
I can jump anything I come to
I do not need to come down

Gravity don’t work on me

It would have been interesting if I’d written about this song at the time I was most obsessed with it. I haven’t been writing in here since I got to Australia, I have less free time than I did when I was studying in Taiwan so I suppose it’s to be expected, although the dramas have upped their pace so I have more to write about. But that also takes up a lot of my time, hah.

I had never noticed this song, even though I’d had it around for years, seeing as I’ve had this album ever since it came out. Then one day in November, I was in the bath and needed to use my ipod as a timer. So the next song that came on, I programmed to play 4 times. Simple as that.

And this was the song, and suddenly tears were streaming down my face, as I thought of how different things had been in 2002 when all I wanted was to have babies with V. How I used to wish for a mistake… and how I’d thought he’d be a good dad. I sat in the bathtub and cried as I thought of V out in New Zealand, living his simple kind of life, and how I could have it all, if I wanted; how I could just go out there and we could get married and I could have his babies and we’d live on a farm in beautiful, beautiful New Zealand. The truth was obvious: I’d left him because I was scared of committing to him, and wanted to sow my wild oats, but now the time was right, and I was back.

I couldn’t get in contact with him fast enough. I knew I loved him so much. I had Sunny Road on repeat in my head as I wrote to him, hoping that it wasn’t too late, that those two years we had spent apart hadn’t spoilt the love we had for each other.

Three days later I was on a flight to New Zealand. He had told me which coach to take, but in fact had come to pick me up as a surprise. When I saw him there, barefoot and wearing a little hat and so nervous and yet full of love, I jumped into his arms. Butterflies, they were still there… or so I thought.

It was bumpy but bearable in New Zealand, but I left after two weeks without the slightest doubt: I loved him, but it wasn’t meant to be. Then he turned up in Melbourne ten days later, and made my life hell for a whole month. It ended up with a fist fight and a screaming match, and I kicked him out, so glad to see him gone. It didn’t work out, I’m covered in shells.

And so I came back to this song, and listened to it carefully.

How did I get so faithful to my freedom? That isn’t a question of despair. It’s a song about coming of age, realising that the dreams I held as a teenager were irrational, no longer work for me. Yes, I used to dream of having kids and settling down, and I have changed, I have to state the facts: I am now so faithful to my freedom. I am no longer that person. It’s called growing up. Our relationship spanned 6 years; now it is over, that’s the end of the simple kind of life.

For a long time I was in love…
Not only in love, I was obsessed,
With a friendship that no one else could touch,
It didn’t work out, I’m covered in shells…

Now all those simple things are simply too
Complicated for my life,
How’d I get so faithful to my freedom?
A selfish kind of life
When all I ever wanted was the simple things,
A simple kind of life…

And it would be the perfect song if… if it had been true.

We’ve been to the top, been so in love, climbed up mountains together in France and China and New Zealand… we’ve been to the bottom, hated each other, slummed it in a crack den in London. We’ve known everything, known how pure and fresh and good the world is, how good it is to be in love, seen new realities when we were high as kites… we’ve forgotten so much as well, the good and the bad…
We’ve fought, fist fights, beating each other up, wanting to hurt each other so much, once he sprained his foot kicking a massive bed over during a cocaine-fueled argument, we’ve taken turns to trash the room and smash things up in order to avoid smashing the other one’s face in.
He’s wrapped me in cotton, treating me like his little princess, cleaning cooking washing stroking he did everything for me, and was furious with people who hurt me. He babied me and I babied him…

I could go on… it felt like the whole song was written about us. And the butterflies were still there… for him. Not for me.

It’s easier for me. I just let go… and blithely sing that we understand each other, cos we come, from the same, cocoon.

We’ve been to the top, we’ve been to the bottom
We’ve known everything and forgotten, yeah

Because we came from the same cocoon

Wrote you this
I hope you got it safe
It’s been so long
I don’t know what to say
I’ve travelled ’round
Through deserts on my horse
But jokes aside
I wanna come back home
You know that night
I said I had to go
You said you’d meet me
On the sunny road

Well, this is it
I’m running out of space
Here is my address
And number just in case.
This time as one
We’ll find which way to go
Now come and meet me
On the sunny road

I really believed it!

You’re beautiful, that’s for sure
You’ll never ever fade
You’re lovely but it’s not for sure
That I won’t ever change
And though my love is rare
Though my love is true

I’m like a bird, I only fly away
I don’t know where my soul is, I don’t know where my home is
(and baby all I need for you to know is)
I’m like a bird, I only fly away
I don’t know where my soul is , I don’t know where my home is
All I need for you to know is
I’m like a bird, I only fly away
I don’t know where my soul is, I don’t know where my home is
(and baby all I need for you to know is)
I’m like a bird, I only fly away
I don’t know where my soul is , I don’t know where my home is
All I need for you to know is…

And this is my reply to him, cheesy as it sounds…

Up so early, feel so bright
Didn’t get much sleep last night
Freight train rattled through my head
Whistle blowing love is dead, is dead

I just wanna wish you well
I just wanna wish you well

This will sound really weird and slightly pretentious but I have totally projected these words into T’s mouth. They are the words I hear him thinking. It’s perfect, right down to the fucking heart attack…
I’ve listened to it far too many times since first hearing it, out of nowhere, on the train on the way to T’s…

Oh dear… I wish I weren’t so cold.

Attract me, till it hurts to concentrate,
Distract me, stop me doin work I hate
Just to show him how it feels;
I walk past his desk in heels
One leg resting on the chair
From the side he pulls my hair.

Amy, Amy, Amy
Although I’ve been here before
Amy, Amy, Amy
He’s just too hard to ignore
Masculine he spins a spell
I think he’d wear me well
Where’s my moral parallel?

SO hard to ignore the guys at work. Specially J… hmm…

Think I’m going for a walk now
I feel a little unsteady
I don’t want nobody to follow me
‘Cept maybe you
I could make you happy you know
If you weren’t already
I could do a lot of things
And I do

I see you and I’m so perplexed
What was I thinking
What will I think of next
Where can I hide
In the back room there’s a lamp
That hangs over the pool table
And when the fan is on it swings
Gently side to side
There’s a changing constellation of balls as we are playing
I see orion and say nothing
The only thing I can think of saying is fuck you…

ON FUCKING LOOP. I FUCKING HATE YOU. YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE. FUCK YOU.

Tell you the truth I prefer
The worst of you
Too bad you had to have a better half
She’s not really my type
But I think you two are forever
And I hate to say it but
You’re perfect together

I see you and I’m so perplexed
What was I thinking
What will I think of next
Where can I hide

All of them. Wake up alone, and Untouchable Face, and all the others. You fucking rip me up inside. Oh I know, I do it to myself, but you should leave me alone. Leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me aloooooooooooone. Don’t worry, I won’t ever forget you. I won’t ever get over you, but at least leave me be, let me be happy…

It’s been 16 months. We spent 9 days together. Nine days! Just fuck off, fuck right off and let me live alone and ashamed.

I have known you for a long long time
and there’s memories there that are buried
deeper than I’ll ever be with you
and I know your face as I know my own
I’ve never failed to be surprised
that I could ever stand to be apart from you

now I feel I’m losing my self control it’s caving in
and I love you and I miss you and I’m sure you know

Emotions! It’s been a while.

The emotions I feel at the moment aren’t generally captured by pop music so I’m not really up to blogging them.
BUT I love this song so much.