Did I ever tell you that whenever I try out a new pen I scrawl the words “This is the last day of our acquaintance.” 

Often I write it twice, just to see how it feels. The pen, I mean — not the words. The words are the saddest, and I always, always think, God, these words are so sad and I will never write them to anyone. But, one day after I’m dead, you’ll find these words written on scraps of paper and in margins of my notebooks and things all over the place. 

I’ve been writing these words in my hand for over thirty years.

That track, along with all the others on that album is pure divinity. She almost casually told you everything that broke her heart. She had one of the most beautiful faces I’ve ever seen, and it was right on the cover — arresting is the only way to describe her — and her voice was so fucking powerful. Haunting. Angelic. A miracle.

Surely, she wasn’t really of this earth. She was way too good for this place.

That whole album though. It’s all her pain set to arrangements that were so swell… or so spare… or so quiet. The journal of her tortured soul set to music.

“I Am Stretched On Your Grave” uses the Funky Drummer riff (one of my favourite applications of that loop) AND it’s got those fiddles in there towards the end… it’s all rave-y and Irish AF, and I danced to that track on repeat all night long once.

I listened to “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and thought, Does she see her life? She does. She did. Oh god.

(There’s also that little song that Prince wrote… that was pretty okay, I guess. #bestcoverever ?)

To not want what you haven’t got is a trick that probably takes a lifetime to master. And it’s an agonizing  endeavour, to be as bald as you dare to be. Turn your tortured self inside out and show your heartbreak to the world? That is terrifying. How could she be so brave?

I think because she couldn’t be anything else. She’s stardust.

It’s rainy, and I’ve had tears behind my eyes since yesterday, and music in my ears, and Black Boys on Mopeds, and what IS this life? Is torture just part of the package sometimes?

Makes my stomach hurt to consider.

“All I want to do is sit here and write it all down, and rest for a while.”

Me too. Me too.

❤️