#mimijams

A mini epiphany I’ve finally been able to put into words whilst on a train listening to Colors by Halsey -

Shane is a construct representing Anxiety and Ilya depicting Depression.

That’s why they align so well - they are opposite sides of the same coin.

It’s also why their stress manifests differently.

Shane panics and projects outwards and Ilya retreats into the black pit of the void.

It’s why Shane overthinks and tries to reach out in cryptic ways - he searches frantically for reassurance and clarity. Whereas Ilya feigns indifference over a carefully crafted canvas of bravado - the textbook reaction for crippling avoidance.

Shane is blue - melancholic icy water that inspires gasping breaths.

Ilya is grey - bleak, numbing clouds of nothing that results in silence.

My boys 🥺

It’s phenomenal, both lyrically and sonically.

I’m not fully familiar with the Virgin album yet, but whatever little interaction I’ve had with it I’ve loved.

The cover art is just perfect - the X-Ray being so uncomfortably intrusive, the zip a symbol of attempting to muster a modicum of modesty despite the stark scrutiny of something so personal and lastly, the IUD acting as a massive “fuck you” to the US’s political landscape and their diabolical legislative measures over a woman’s reproductive right.*

The reaction of unease it provokes mirrors the morality lacking so starkly within society, for it is equally as uneasy to discover just how many feel so entitled to dictate a decision so intimate to one’s individual circumstance.

“If I’d had virginity, I would have given that too.”

“Was I just young blood to get on tape?”

“I made you God ‘cause it was all that I knew how to do.”

“I don’t belong to anyone…”

So powerful, so relatable, so poetic even within her own self-deprecation.

And don’t even get me started on that crescendo at the end 😮‍💨 the trippy, synth-poppy, staccato 4 notes hammering repeatedlymaddeninglyecHOINGLYUNTIL-

“Am I ever gon’ love again?”

A gentle, despondent and vulnerable question … with no answer in sight.

Endless applause, Miss Ella 👏