#lyricthots

“I don’t like slow motion double vision in rose blush” is absolute lyrical brilliance. It is perfectly obscure yet clear imagery in a song that’s about a daydream—and daydreams themselves are obscure yet clear. Plus, I’m just a big sucker for using “double vision in rose blush” as an even more poetic version of “seeing through rose-colored glasses.”

I'm just a girl… I'm alone, on my own. No one wanted to play with me as a little kid, nobody ever lets me in. Something different bloomed writing in my room. I see the great escape, I play my songs in the parking lot just to learn that my dreams aren't rare. Maybe I'm just a girl on a mission but I'm ready to fly in the angel's city, chasing fortune and fame. No one in my small town thought I'd meet these suits in L.A. and the camera flashes make it look like a dream. The kind of radiance you only have at 17, making my own name, chasing that fame. The crown is stained, but you're the real queen selling dreams, selling make up and magazines and your secrets end up splashed on the news front page. No cameras catch my pageant smile and my cheeks are growing tired from turning red and faking smiles. They said, "Babe, you gotta fake it till you make it" and I did. Cause ladies always rise above, so I became the butt of the joke. Talk your talk and go viral 'cause, baby, I could build a castle out of all the bricks they threw at me. Crowd goes wild at her fingertips but there's robbers to the east, clowns to the west. I tried to pick my battles 'til the battle picked me. I was in the alley surrounded on all sides. Brought a knife to a gunfight. I looked around in a blood-soaked gown and tried to tell the town. You said the gun was mine, so they filled my cell with snakes. They say I did something bad then tell me I'm despicable. People look at me like I'm a monster. Now they're screaming that they hate me. I can feel the flames on my skin, and you find something to wrap your noose around. They're burning all the witches even if you aren’t one. So light me, and if I'm on fire, you'll be made of ashes too. So I leap from the gallows, and I levitate down your street. I didn't want to have to haunt you but I've got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined. They say, "move on", but all I think about is karma. I've come too far to watch some namedropping sleaze tell me what are my words worth. My pennies made your crown. You had to kill me, but it killed you just the same. The knife cuts both ways, look at how my tears ricochet. Them's the breaks, they don't come gently. It still hurts underneath my scars from when they pulled me apart, and I can go anywhere I want just not home. He's got my past frozen behind glass but I've got me. I’m still on that trapeze. I'm still trying everything to keep you looking at me. Lights, camera, bitch smile. I can still make the whole place shimmer. I pushed each boulder up the hill, climbed right back up the cliff 'cause there were pages turned with the bridges burned. Ask me why so many fade, but I'm still here. Always risin' from the ashes 'cause I'm a real tough kid, I can handle my shit. I gave my blood, sweat, and tears for this. And at last she knew what the agony had been for. I built a legacy that you can't undo. Long story short, I survived. You're on your own, kid. You always have been.

We hereby conduct this post-mortem… Knew he was a killer first time that I saw him. If I bleed you’ll be the last to know. I feel like I might sink and drown and die. What doesn't kill me makes me want you more. My broken bones are mending from all these nights we’re spending. Do I really have to tell you how he brought me back to life? I can't let you go, your handprints on my soul. Your love is a secret I'm hoping, dreaming, dying to keep. My one and only, my lifeline. Remember how I said I'd die for you? Combat, I'm ready for combat. Threw out our cloaks and our daggers 'cause saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts but I would die for you in secret. You fire off missiles 'cause you hate yourself but do you know you're demolishing me? I am ash from your fire. Break my soul in two looking for you but you're right here. "It only hurts this much right now" was what I was thinkin' the whole time. You assume I'm fine, and you don't really read into my melancholia. My depression works the graveyard shift. All my mornings are Mondays stuck in an endless February. In the shade of how he was feeling. Catastrophic blues, my sadness is contagious. I know my pain is such an imposition. I dream of crackin' locks, throwin' my life to the wolves or the ocean rocks. Make it make some sense why the wound is still bleedin' and I'm fadin'. Just how low did you think I'd go 'fore I'd self-implode? My spine split from carrying us up the hill and all I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier. I'm getting tired even for a phoenix, always risin' from the ashes, mendin' all the gashes. Wet through my clothes, weary bones caught the chill. My face was gray, but you wouldn't admit that we were sick til we were too far gone to bring back to life. I can't find a pulse, my heart won't start anymore for you. I stopped CPR, after all, it's no use the spirit was gone, we would never come to. Our maladies were such we could not cure them. Two graves, one gun. Say it once again with feeling how the death rattle breathing silenced as the soul was leaving. The deflation of our dreaming leaving me bereft and reeling. My beloved ghost and me, sitting in a tree D-Y-I-N-G. You know there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love. The slowest way is never loving them enough.

I had died the tiniest death. I knew you'd miss me once the moment died. You saw my bones out with somebody new. Now I just sit here and wait, grieving for the living. In my defense I have none for digging up the grave another time. Cause we’re still alive killing time at the cemetery, never quite buried. Can we watch our phantoms like watching wild horses? What if I roll the stone away? They’re gonna crucify me anyway. Oh, what a way to die. You Holy Ghost, you told me I'm the love of your life. But when your impressionist paintings of heaven turned out to be fakes you took me to hell too and it kills me, I just don't understand how you don't miss me. Fuck it if I can't have him I might just die, it would make no difference. Dancing phantoms on the terrace are they second-hand embarrassed that I can't get out of bed ‘cause something counterfeit's dead? And now I want to hire a priest to come and exorcise my demons even if I die screaming and I hope you hear it. Cause I would've died for your sins instead I just died inside. I should've let it stay buried cause I'll still see it until I die. You’re the loss of my life…

We were a fresh page on the desk, filling in the blanks as we go. Don't read the last page but I stay. Pages turn and stick to each other. Now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life. And all the pages are just slipping through my hands. But if the story's over, why am I still writing pages? And the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now. But I still don't know, how did it end?

No, I don't like a gold rush… I saw the dimples first and then I heard the accent. Wondered how many girls he had loved and left haunted. Everybody wants you. You should think about the consequence of your magnetic field being a little too strong. If you've got a girlfriend, I'm jealous of her but if you’re single that’s honestly worse. I don't wanna miss you like the other girls do. Do the girls back home touch you like I do? Stay here, honey, I don't wanna share. I'm so chill, but you make me jealous. And I'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you. Quiet my fears with the touch of your hand. Everybody wonders what it would be like to love you. And you're the kinda guy the ladies want and there's a lot of cool chicks out there. I don't like that anyone would die to feel your touch. Fear is the nightmare I had, you were with someone else, you forgot about me. I pictured you with other girls in love then threw up on the street. You said I have to trust more freely but diesel is desire, you were playing with fire. I left all I knew, you left me at the house by the Heath. Every breath feels like rarest air when you're not sure if he wants to be there. And maybe it was egos swinging, maybe it was her. That moment again, he's insisting that friends look at each other like that. I didn't opt in to be your odd man out. I founded the club she's heard great things about. And my friends said it isn't right to be scared every day of a love affair. Somewhere in the haze, got a sense I'd been betrayed. My husband is cheating, fell victim to interlopers' glances. He was with her in dreams. So long, London, you'll find someone… but I don’t like a gold rush