Love Between the Lyrics
Article by Anonymous, art by Maren Greene
1. Deer Necklace
My friend had a crush. This became clear when she laid face-down on my dorm
room floor, buried in my white shag rug.
“He’s just so sweet! He walked me home and we kissed and he was such a good kisser. And so good at sex.”
I could have predicted it. The saga had started a week before, when she had pointed to two white, vaguely bearded, and symmetrical faces on her class zoom screen. Him and Another Guy. “Which one should be my block crush?”
I chose The Other Guy for his European-sounding name and glasses which made it look like he knew large and important things, like What To Do To a Woman in Bed (and he would definitely call it ‘in bed’).
“He has a girlfriend.”
“Oh, well then, him I guess.”
I pointed to Him, with a slightly less European-sounding name and no glasses.
“Yes, I think that’s the right choice. I think he’ll be my block crush.”
That was a week ago and now she is
in pain. Self-inflicted, though excruciating pain. Tied to my rug, prisoner to her own impulses. To double-text him, or worse yet, call and see what
he was up to. To stalk his art account, full of watercolors of his artfully nude girlfriend. I tried to distract her with information about manifestation, the law of attraction, attachment theory, and anything that didn’t involve direct communication with a man who seemed intent on ghosting her. It was information (if you can call it that) gleaned from my time as a historically accurate representation of the classical figure of the yearning teenage girl.
“Affirmations!”
“Focus on your self-concept!”
“What you think is what you receive!” Nothing was sticking with Ella, who was still face-down on my rug, now in a fetal position.
I switched to my next prepared line of attack.
“Let’s make a crush playlist!”
She shifted her cheek up, slightly, to look at me.
“What’s that?”
“It’s like a vision board, but with music, so you can listen to it and think about him.”
Think was the key word here, as thinking is famously harmless as long as it is not followed by acting.
“Oooh!”
She swung her legs around so she was lying on her stomach and propped up her cheeks on her hands. Her eyes had the overzealous enthusiasm of a middle schooler who had just learned the word ‘cunt.’
“Yes, I think we should do that.”
I joined her on the rug and we lay, foreheads pressing into each other, Spotify in my palm.
First, we needed a name.
“What about ‘crushing?’”
“No, no, that’s way too on the nose. It has to be...obscure.”
“Right. So like, something about him. Something he does.”
“He used a magic wand on my clit.”
“Hmmm. That’s great. But I was thinking, like, a hobby.”
“Oh. I know. He makes necklaces out of deer teeth.”
Necklaces out of deer teeth. Yes, we could work with that. I created a new playlist and named it “Deer Necklace.” Now for the songs.
“Crush Culture” for obvious reasons. “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings” but the Squirrel Flower version, which is slower and more conducive to lying in a Twin XL bed and staring at the ceiling. “Marlboro Nights” for the moments of classroom hyperfixation. “Sex (Acoustic Version)” for when the yearning turned to torniness, the emotion we coined that combines both tiredness and horniness.
The result was an amalgamation of different forms of pain. Excited chest pangs, sorrowful yearning. Pain from having someone you love and pain from never having them at all. I watched on the Spotify sidebar as Ella listened to the playlist until two in
the morning (He, thankfully, didn’t follow her). I woke up to texts from her – screenshots of songs by Conan Gray and girl in red – “thiiiiiiissss.”
Two weeks later, when his intent to ghost her became impossible to deny, Ella once again buried her face into my shag rug.
I said – “Let’s make a heartbreak playlist.”
If nothing else, it got her to sit up.
2. I And Love And You
I say “I love you” for the first time through a song. Or rather, through my fingers, weaving through his and sitting idly on my lap in the way I would impulsively reach for them whenever
I was in his passenger seat. We are driving through the mountains, the car nearly tipping off the edge of Monarch pass. The song is “I and Love and You,” by the Avett Brothers. I tell him it speaks to me because it’s about coming home, when home is where I’m from.
Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in, are you aware the shape I’m in.
I listened to it on the car ride from LaGuardia. I came home from college in the winter, battered from weeks spent at the intersection of delirium and crisis. Through Williamsburg warehouses and past the warm-toned brownstone windows. Where roast chicken comes out of the oven and sourdough starter rises on clean, marble counters.
Take me in.
There’s only so much a city can do. Especially Brooklyn, with its threat of
rats and underfunded subways. But I needed it to do everything. I needed the air in Prospect Park to supply my body with fresh oxygen. Grand Army Plaza Market to feed me with fruits and vegetables to redeem a threatened liver. My family to shelter me with the knowledge that I can scream or not talk at all, and they will still love me. On the first day back, my mom puts chlorophyll in my water and tells me I’m not myself. A foggy, damp version of the girl I used to be. When it hurts, I know it’s true. I’m terrified of not being myself. But if I’m not, this is the only place to be.
Are you aware of the shape I’m in?
It’s a challenge to the city, to practice forgiveness, but now it is a challenge to him: Will you be my Brooklyn?
Three words that became hard to say. So hard I can’t say them, at least not before him. So, I test them with my fingers.
I tap
And Love
tap
And You
tap.
There’s a silence in the car. The song still plays but the silence is louder. It could make me anxious or it could give me bliss. I have yet to figure out which is true.
The song circles to the chorus. The familiar words once again.
Three words that became hard to say.
My mind is in my fingers now, but they are no longer speaking. Now, they listen through the silence.
I tap
And Love tap
And You tap.
I know the song will never be Brooklyn again.