a song you'll never hear again

so many nights spent listening to The National, they've become an outside comfort. they always seemed to know the state of our relationship, both good and bad. but i guess that's every band, isn't it? so much written about love, loss and pain.

in the early evenings in Los Angeles, cooking dinner in our loft apartment, bright kitchen lights softly illuminating the bedroom office, we lived in one large room with many corners connected by a staircase. back then, the lyrics that spoke to our situation were:

Stay out super late tonight

Picking apples, making pies

Put a little something in our lemonade

And take it with us

Tiptoe through our shiny city

With our diamond slippers on

Do our gay ballet on ice

Bluebirds on our shoulders

Turn the light out, say goodnight

No thinking for a little while

Let's not try to figure out everything at once

It's hard to keep track of you falling through the sky

We're half awake in a fake empire

and now? i can't stop listening to this song. it's a chorus to the waves of pain and regret i feel throughout the day. it gives shape to the voids and emptiness and soft-voiced anger i have felt since this started sinking in. it's a reminder that things will be different and i'll never get certain things back, even songs are changed.

Don't make me read your mind
It takes me too much time
You're not that much like me
We have different enemies
You should know me better than that

I should leave it alone but you're not right
I should leave it alone but you're not right

Can't you write it on the wall?
There's no room to write it all
Can you turn the TV down?
There's too much crying in the sound
I should know you better than that

I should leave it alone but you're not right
I should live in salt for leaving you behind
Behind

Think about something so much
Start to slide out of touch
Tell yourself it's all you know
Learn to appreciate the void
You should know me better than that

I should live in salt for leaving you behind
Behind
I should live in salt for leaving you behind
Behind
I should live in salt for leaving you behind
Behind