the devil's rose's blog

2009-02-15 7:19 a.m.

This song is what sent almost me into a panic attack when I saw her play a concert in London.

The video's not from that show, but rather from the show she played in my hometown. Ironic that that would be the version with the clearest audio.

But it's still not perfectly clear, so here are the lyrics:

Trout Heart Replica
They've been circling
They've been circling
Since the day they were born

It's disturbing how they're circling
50 feet from the pond

Pretty often
Pretty often
I don't want to be told

It's a problem
It's a problem
It's a problem, I know

And I wont keep what I can't catch
In my bare hands without a net
It's hard enough to walk on grass
So conscious of the consequences

They've been jerking
They've been jerking
In a pail by the dock
I know that oxygen might make them blossom and die
But I'm not gonna talk

Feed them details
Feed them emails
They'll eventually grow

It's not working
It's not working
Not as far as I know

And killing things is not so hard
It's hurting that's the hardest part
And when the wizard gets to me
I'm asking for a smaller heart

And I've got you
I've got you
Now I'll ruin it all

Feeling helpless
Acting selfish
Being human and all

And they're jumping
And they're jumping
But they'll never get out

Just keep touring
Keep ignoring
Be a good little trout

And the butcher stops and winds the clock
And lays their lives down on the block
He raises up his hatchet
And the big hand strikes the compromise

Wait
We'll trade you
Wait
Please just one more day
Then we'll go with no complaining
No complaining
No complaining
Stop complaining!

And they're killing
And they're cutting
And I think that I know

And they're gutting
And they're gutting
And I think that I know

And it's beating
It's still beating
And I think that I know

And it's beating
Look it's still beating
God, I dont wanna know!

And killing things is not so hard
It's hurting thats the hardest part
And when the wizard gets to me
I'm asking for a smaller heart

And if he tells me no
I'll hold my breath until I hit the floor
Eventually, I know
I'm doomed to get what I am asking for

Now my heart is exactly the size
Of a six-sided die cut in half
Made of ruby red stained glass
Can I knock you unconscious as long as I promise
I'll love you and I'll make you laugh?

And my heart is exactly the size
Of a six-sided die cut in half
Made of ruby red stained glass
Can I knock you unconscious as long as I promise
I'll love you and I'll make you laugh?

That song still makes me cry. There's something so tragic about it.

There's an interesting argument between some people who think that it's a straight up reference to the fact that the singer/songwriter is a fishatarian (yay for inventing your own words. I know the real terms, being vegetarian myself, but I like making up my own ^^) and has been vegan, and then other people who are like, um, that might be part of it but it can't be all of it.

I guess I'd be in the latter camp, if I cared to debate song meanings. Like I said, I'm a vegetarian, but I wouldn't invest much energy into writing a song or anything about it.

Besides, there are too many other references in there.

...anyway. I'll get back to the song in a bit.

So it was Valentine's Day yesterday. Yay, or something?

I'm honestly completely indifferent to the whole thing. I think it's stupid to have to have *A DAY* where you show people that you love them, but at the same time, I know that sometimes those gestures can get lost in the madness of daily life. My biggest issue with the whole thing (well, two issues) is the fact that so many couples take it as an excuse for gratuitous PDA, which squicks me out - like, I'm glad you're happy, but get a fucking room - and the fact that it's gotten so commercialized to the point where I feel like what little validity it has as a day devoted to showing your love for people has been diminished by making a mockery of it.

Seriously, how many people do you know who would freak out if the person they were seeing *didn't* do something for Valentine's Day? Exactly.

It's stupid. And obnoxious. And I have no patience for either of those things.

But, conceptually, I neither love nor hate the day. I just hate what people have done to it. I'm pretty indifferent to the whole thing myself.

Some of the other Californians here were throwing a party for it. A stoplight party, so you wear one of three colors depending on if you're taken, looking for romance/love, or looking for "action".

I'm not any of those. I'm actually quite happy being single. And I kind of hate the assumption (based on their own personalities) that the others are making that, if you're single, either you don't want to be anymore, or you're sexually frustrated and looking to get off.

Not to go TMI here, but I am perfectly comfortable and familiar enough with my own body that I don't need anyone else to get me off. And I'm emotionally mature enough that I don't need to be involved with anyone, and frankly, at this point in my life, I'm too busy for it anyway. So I'm none of the above.

That's only a small fraction of why I blew it off.

Frankly, I'm just not in a mood to be dealing with people, let alone amorous people.

I've been in a conflict with my mom. Kinda epic, since we're 6000 miles apart, but she's the only person I know who can manage something like that.

And I was talking to R about it. And just venting. About how I hate this bullshit so much. But it doesn't even make me angry anymore. It just makes me feel really tired and cranky and emo and sad. I mean, I get angry about the asshole guy who lied to me, or the two people I thought were friends who stabbed me in the back and then expected me to come crawling back and apologize to them for defending myself, because those aren't supposed to happen. And while this family stuff isn't supposed to happen, it has happened and it does happen so much that I almost expect it. And I really just don't know what to think anymore.

I know tht the only way for all this to end is to completely cut them out. This keeping them at arm's length thing is failing spectacularly. It cuts down the mini explosions, but those are almost a safety valve, you know? They spread the tension out over a longer period of time so that it's not as sharp and focused. And I've lost a lot of my resistance to all of it, being away for so long.

So all of this has just built up and is now going off in the emotional equivalent of Hiroshima. Because I just force myself to go numb - or at least as numb as possible. So that I don't have to deal with it. And that's how my mental state all got so fucked to begin with. Because you don't really go numb, anymore than a person with serious burns does. You just burn all the nerve endings away, but the damage is still there. You still have to find some way to heal over, but then the scars are painful and the healing process is dangerous and let's not forget about all the infections that are possible when your edges are all raw...

Eventually it gets to a point where, no matter how fucked up they are, my mom is still a bitch. My sister is still insane. My brother is still in a narcotic nightmare that he has to save himself from. They're not Cinderella. I'm not Prince Charming. God forbid I should get stuck in the rut of always trying to fix things for them.

So why does it have to hurt so goddamn much?!

I STILL feel fucking responsible for the lot of them. And even aside from that, I still let myself hope that maybe things will be different. Maybe *this* time things won't get so thoroughly fucked up. You go a while without fighting (mainly because you haven't heard from them), and you manage to delude yourself into thinking that things have been good for a while, maybe they'll FINALLY stay that way.

I want things to be normal so badly. Even to the point that I hope that I've been horribly bitchy in distorting things to make myself feel better. But then reality comes crashing in and I know it's not true.

I just get more jaded and bitter and angry and hurt and withdrawn and generally fucked-up. I don't get any smarter. I don't ever learn.

...Now, obviously this wasn't what set me off at the concert. I hadn't spoken to them in months at that point, and I was blissfully free of them...but my problems with the people who had been my best friends were right in the forefront of my mind because of the appointment with my psychologist that week.

And it's the same thing there. I keep thinking about the conversations we've had, and all the things that have transpired, and I keep wondering what could have happened. If I was crazy. But then I look back at the conversations I saved. And I reread my journals. And it's not true. It's been the same bullshit forever, and I still just want to be crazy. I want it to be my fault so I can make it better.

I know it wouldn't actually work that way, but you try telling your emotions what to do.

...In the end, I didn't tell Jorge (the psychologist) about the whole thing. I didn't see a point to get into it. Now I think I probably should have.

Oh, well. I'm going again on Tuesday. We can talk about it then, I suppose.

I just. I need some way to break these patterns. I've interalized all the blame from being told that everything was my fault as a kid. And even though I knew it couldn't POSSIBLY be true - no one person can ever be responsible for everything that happens - but you hear something often enough and you start to believe it.

"And when the Wizard gets to me..."

I don't know if it's a smaller heart that I need. But I need to not care.

Then I wouldn't spend days at a time under a pile of blankets in my room, pretending not to exist and trying to will myself into oblivion.

Because this just isn't working.

And I wish I could talk about happier things, except it's like, "WHAT happier things?" My life is sort of overshadowed by all of this, despite my best attempts to avoid it.

><

And I just realized that my time here is now half over. I feel like time's accelerating, now, to pitch me back into a home that I am nowhere near prepared to deal with. I don't know if I'll be able to cope by the time I return home.

....

Fuck it all. I hate this. Back | Older | Current | Next