Happy National Poetry Month! I had many grand plans of how I was going to celebrate and share my words, then a bought of depression hit, and all that went out the window. So, here we are at the almost end of the month and thanks to Taylor Swift's new album, The Tortured Poets Department, I think it's time to talk about the story behind the story in when I believed in love.
I wrote when I believed in love after ending, for what I thought was the last time, a relationship that consumed me in a way I had never experienced. I'd just started dating again after leaving my husband, was in the middle of my divorce proceedings, and it was the most chaotic, beautiful, maddening, euphoric, dizzying kind of love. I found so much of who I am while sacrificing myself in the name of choosing someone incapable of choosing me back. It was a delicious affair of late night meetings, lies, destruction, and awakening.
Let's break it down piece by piece, then I'll let you in on some of the secrets hidden between the lines.
part one - it started with pancakes
I wrote this snippet of story in 2015 while on vacation in North Carolina. I was in this uptown area with little boutiques and I started daydreaming about this meet cute between a girl, and a stranger in this small seaside town. This sat in my notes app until when I believed in love started to come together. This is the falling in love stage of the story, where all you think about is them, want to spend your time wrapped in their sheets, ignoring the world around you.
My favorite piece from part one:
the dress I wore
the night you swore
that you would never leave
the way we danced
in kitchen light
I never will forget
(The song was You & Me by Flume and the dress still haunts my closet, untouched...)
part two - stay
I wrote part two last; once I realized that the outline was going to be three parts to show the beginning, middle, and end of the relationship, I needed to come up with something to tie it all together. I can't tell you how many times the word stay, was breathed sleepily at 2am, through tears, or screamed in the middle of a fight. It didn't matter how many times we said it, neither of us did for long. There were several moments where I counted days on a calendar anxiously waiting for the next moment that things would fall apart.
My favorite piece from part two:
I know your house
like the back of my hand
a map of the places we've kissed
my things on the nightstand
remember that night
I got too high
counted my footsteps in the dark
up the stairs to sleep by your side
we watched the sun rise through the trees
nothing could come between
you & me
part three - it ended with rain
This is word for word what happened, that almost final day, when we'd both had enough. This was before another year of my life would be lost to the back and forth, some regrettable moments, and a final I hate you seethed into the phone. I can't properly put into words what this felt like, I tried and still do sometimes. It was an explosion of electricity and the complete loss of common sense because a beautiful boy really saw me for me, and loved the darkest parts, without question. Which is really all we want right?
I have several favorites from this part because the dramatic sad ones are always my best work, but this one is at the top:
when they ask
if I believe in soulmates
I'll smile softly
say no
because I knew
long before it started
that you would have to go
He knows this book exists, whether he knows it's our story I'm not sure, we've never talked about it. He is part of the acknowledgments because I'm nothing if not an agent of chaos. It didn't make sense to put anyone else on the cover because this was written for me and about me. Anna is the second half of my name and Parker is a two syllable name similar to that of our real MMC.
Everything I write is for me and with the sole purpose of helping me heal through my feelings, with the goal of being authentic in who I am. I always hope that if anyone relates to the things I share, that it helps them to know they're not alone and that it is perfectly okay to feel your feelings loudly.
Additional quirky things about the book:
The quotes found through out the book were real things that were said.
There's a single typo in one of the poems - decided not to correct it.
The photo on the cover is me in a wedding dress I modeled for a styled shoot, you get it.
If you missed it, the final line in my fave poem in part two is the title of the song referenced in my favorite piece in part one.
"If guys don't want me to write bad songs about them, they shouldn't do bad things" - Taylor Swift (and Arianna Urban)
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