My Immortal

There's that fucking haunting piano intro, ushering me away, out of this world.

God, I hate this song. You would love it. You would love a lot of the new hybrid sounds, if only because they exist. Of course, I guess you'd hate a lot of it, too. If only because a lot of it is shit. I laugh out loud because my thoughts sound like something you would say. Even my laugh is an imitation of what's left of you in my head, mocking me in the empty room.

~*~*~I'm so tired of being here ~*~*~

In four minutes and nineteen seconds, some little southern girl who was only five when you were torn from my life puts into words the thoughts I always hide.

I'm ranting. I'm sorry. It burns me that this achingly beautiful song spells out everything I've tried to drown out for however the hell many years.

~*~*~ Suppressed by all of my childish fears ~*~*~

I don't get to talk music with you anymore. Or life, or love, or death. Or hate, and how much I hate death. ‘Fear' doesn't come into play here (and I think I've done enough to prove that I'm beyond fear). This is hate, pure-simple-true, and motivating. It would be with me even if you still were; after all nothing could bring back mom. Well, maybe a doctor's visit or two. But now I can't even talk to you about all of this, any of this. Fucking thief, that death douchebag.

~*~*~ And if you have to leave ~*~*~

I remember finding you. Vividly. There were a few moments free of the dream effect in which most of those years are shrouded. You finding me is one moment: alive and pulsing and waiting for you. Me finding you was another, and the polar opposite: everything that was never supposed to come between you and I, because you were intended to be something different in my life. (Yet, it was everything I was used to. Everything I had come to expect hand in hand with love.)

~*~*~ I wish that you would just leave ~*~*~

I can't be with you, and I can't be without you. I can't envy you, but I'm the one trapped in limbo.

~*~*~ Cause your presence still lingers here ~*~*~

If I don't ‘move on' I'm going to start to lose the living as well.

~*~*~ And it won't leave me alone ~*~*~

Bitch of a situation I'm in. I can't be mentally faithful to life but I keep cheating death. Fuck, I wish you were here to tell me what to do. Of course, I wouldn't listen. I laugh again, the sound harsher than the thought that caused it. Of course I wouldn't: can't tell me a damn thing, and you knew it all along. So you would use some subtle mind fuck and get me all turned around until I was so twisted up, I couldn't help but see your logic. I'm feeling pretty fucking twisted right now, so whaddaya say? What have you got for me? Give me a sign. (At least!) Or do you want me on my knees?

~*~*~ These wounds won't seem to heal ~*~*~

No? Nothing? Fair enough.

~*~*~ This pain is just too real ~*~*~

There's nothing that fits right in this entire godforsaken world.

~*~*~ There's just too much that time cannot erase ~*~*~

It's not like you left my heavy heart completely alone: you left my hand weighted as well.

~*~*~ When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears ~*~*~

If I can just separate myself from my thoughts for two fucking seconds I could cope. Everyone thinks they know how much you brought to the table. No one knows how fortunate we really were to have met you. Taught by example. I wanted to emulate you in so many ways. So when you would cry on my shoulder, I couldn't help but be amazed. You didn't do it often, and you didn't wait for a particularly good reason. You would just sigh, lean against me, and a small cold spot of wet would spread over my shoulder. I wonder if you knew what you were doing in those intimate moments. You weren't sharing yourself with me; you were making me your own.

~*~*~ When you scream I'd fight away all of your fears ~*~*~

Your own ‘what' is the thing I (continue) to struggle with; property doesn't fit. No term ever fit nice and neat on us. That made it even harder to accept you were gone. Not only was it a relationship that could never be recreated, it was one I hadn't had enough time to explore or come to understand. Not nearly enough time.

~*~*~ And I've held your hand through all of these years ~*~*~

There were nights I'd lay beside you and wonder how to hide us from the world. Not that we were doing anything wrong. We were never as fucking perverted as those other two. Still, the way you acted with me... and the way I let myself react to you. It was everything I was raised to believe as wrong. (Besides the obvious) Men are supposed to control situations by being strong. You taught me how to be strong by letting go of control. A little bit at a time, and you never pushed too hard.

~*~*~ But you still have all of me ~*~*~

I drop my head into my hands, trying to regain control. This circle of thought is spiraling away from me, and I'm just trying so desperately to stay strong this time. There's no one to guide me.

~*~*~ You used to captivate me by your resonating mind ~*~*~

So, everyone in the whole gawddern world knows how much we learned from you musically. But fucking hell.... what about how much I learned about how to be a complete human being? It's eerie... it's not like you didn't have your own crutches, your own things to hide behind... but you taught me more about being whole.... I was still a scared little kid in too many ways, when you took my hand and led me to your bed and showed me a world that was waiting without abusing my trust. That was the most unexpected thing.

~*~*~ Now I'm bound by the life you left behind ~*~*~

Y'know, sometimes I think you were never real. Sometimes I think you were an angel sent just to get us on track, point us in a direction and whisper ‘go'. Sometimes I feel wind against my neck or shoulder and I swear its your breath or maybe a breeze from the motion of your wings. How do you explain someone that made so many lives so different and yet they were only given such a short time on earth? You're tempted to believe they weren't real. If only to shut your own mind up for two fucking seconds; if only so you can close your eyes and catch your breath. Besides, there was always something eerily serene about you....

~*~*~ Your face it haunts my once pleasant dreams ~*~*~

My dreams were nice, for about a minute. That changed the night metal twisted: ungodly, unnaturally and I howled at the moon. ‘Don't leave me!' Was that the beginning of my animalistic ways, or had the instinct always been there? I really can't remember. My mind is filled with other thoughts. You returned. You came back to me, every night, in my dreams. You made me scream for you just as I did the nights you were alive.

~*~*~ Your voice it chased away all the sanity in me ~*~*~

My calloused third finger feels unusually irritated, and I look down to see I've been absent mindedly twisting your ring against my skin. It'll soon be off. There's someone who's hinting that maybe it's time to take it off and put another ring in its place. I resisted commitment for so long. The guys seem to see it as an option that you can later reassess and see if you made the right decision. I always knew if I ‘settled down', I'd have to make it stick. I thought if I waited long enough, I'd find the right person and it wouldn't take work to make it stick. The things I want in the real world will only come along if I trade in my past for a new band. Don't think I'm not painfully aware–even if I seem like I manage to hide it from myself–that the right person is gone. A faint memory fading against foreign hills like summer snow. But I still wear the ring–nice and solid, like ice– to remind me. It symbolizes, to anyone that matters or bothers to recognize it, the commitment and the reminder of the choice I never had a chance to make (in the real world). The real world still matters though. Only, when I think of anything in it, I think of how it relates to you. I'm being nudged in a direction where I release my previous engagement. Put it away, in a memory box or some shit. I think maybe she's right. I don't want her to be, but I'm having trouble seeing how what I want really matters.

~*~*~ These wounds won't seem to heal ~*~*~

Why the hell am I still here? I can't tell you exactly why. Because I miss you so gawddern much. As crazy as my upbringing was, the guilt lingers. Lingers is the wrong word. Your scent lingers; there's a little box you used to keep some stuff in, and when I open it, the musk of forgotten years, your unique scent, and something sticky sweet drifts out. The guilt pulses within me like a vital organ. It's what makes me question every decision I make: when you always had some saint over your shoulder judging you, it's hard not to look back in apprehension and move forward with trepidation. This is a fancy way of saying if you kill yourself you never make it to heaven. If I give into my haste and greed, I never see you again. I'd never feel my mother's arms around me, neither-- welcoming me home. Somehow that doesn't seem as harsh. I took her for granted. I'm not saying that was right or okay or anything, but when your arms were around me at least I knew what I had. I know what I'm missing.

~*~*~ This pain is just too real ~*~*~

I drank to erase what happened, to erase the hurt. I never could–never wanted to–erase you. Am I using the alcohol to destroy myself so that I can join you? I can't do that. Don't let me do that. But I can't come to you and you can't come back to me. And even if you did send me a sign, I'd probably be too dense to get it. I'm too obsessed with the logic I worship in hopes it will deliver me from my childhood. And I'm still letting other people make up my mind for me. At least now it's people I think I can trust: first my parents, then you, even her. Two out of three ain't bad. I mean for leaving, of course I do. I'm twisted up again: let me try to rephrase that. Two out of three left, third time's a charm right? Why the hell did you put up with me in the first place?

~*~*~ There's just too much that time cannot erase ~*~*~

To live is to die, right? But I'm for this world (for now). I'm not for you. I need to break away from you. I need to; I know this.

~*~*~ When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears ~*~*~

I may be able to give a big ‘fuck off' to that Thieving Bastard, but I'm much more tempted to give in to tears. Christ, isn't this a lovely image. In an empty room, in anger... it's almost shameful. Or maybe that's just the guilt talking.

~*~*~ When you scream I'd fight away all of your fears ~*~*~

I let my tongue free to touch my cheek, and taste salt water. I remember you treating my cheeks the same. But you're not here, the tears are, and I almost wish they'd wash away these thoughts. But then what would I have left?

~*~*~ And I held your hand through all of these years ~*~*~

There's nothing that ever fit right in this world until you. You made it all fall into place, and you put this reminder on me.

~*~*~ But you still have all of me ~*~*~

The isolated heart, another trite image in my mind. And this heavy finger, now red and swollen from my meddling hands.

~*~*~ I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone ~*~*~

I give in and drop my face into my hands. No. I'll shake my head clear; I have to see clear. I have to focus. I have to remember... everything. What you've done and what's to be done by me, now.

As slowly as the violins crying through the speakers, I slide your ring away from my finger.With the weight away, I feel like half of me is missing.

~*~*~ Though you're still with me ~*~*~

I can't fight the feeling that I'm naked and vulnerable without this reminder of... of what? Your life, your love, your death. All the days of the past swim by me in a dizzying swell.

~*~*~ I've been alone all along ~*~*~

So I'll suffer now, because you'd love this song. I hate it. Ok, I don't hate it. I hate that I have to think of you. And I have to listen to it because it reminds me of you. Then I have to think of you. It's this whole self inflicted vicious circle. You'd probably smack me in the head for playing right into the waiting hands of my own demented psychosis. That doesn't make anything I've said less true.

~*~*~ When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears ~*~*~

Somehow, I force myself to stand. I've already done the hard part: the thinking, and letting go of the skull. I have an old box on a shelf that I've never done anything with. I never had a use for it, but it was yours. It stirs up all the familiar scents, and they linger on my finger tips long after I leave this room. Somehow this box feels right to trust my memories to. I trusted you with them, so now I'll put my remaining memory or you in what was once yours.There's a lock on this box. Nothing fancy, but with a tiny gold key. I turn it; more symbolism. I'm dwelling.

~*~*~ When you scream I'd fight away all of your fears ~*~*~

I'm tempted to swallow the key just so I won't be enticed to run back here, unlock the box and thrust my finger into the snug, familiar ring.I'd probably choke on the key and die, knowing my ironic luck. Wouldn't that just be a piece of poetic justice. Fuck, I miss you.

~*~*~ And I held your hand through all of these years ~*~*~

I can't lock up all the why's, though, can I? They'll be with me til my day comes. And I can't lock you up, nice and neat and convenient. Can anyone own an angel? Were you really ever with me, just me? I want to pretend it matters just to focus on anything except tomorrow. But tomorrow will come for me, Cliff.

~*~*~ But you still have all of me ~*~*~

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