He will disappoint you
If you see through, his perfect smile
- "Books Written for Girls," by Camera Obscura
Yo.
That single greeting is the only indication that I listen to hip-hop. I throw it out so casually that it's become apart of me conversationally. But anyway, just look at me. I dress up in collared t-shirts and polos all of the time. I look like your typical, Asian cubicle worker, not a hardcore hip-hop head. The way that I perceived music was just another gauge to my personality, and that determined whether I was dateable or not. So whenever we rode in the car together, you would only listen to music drenched in the acoustic lullabies of guitars and twinges of violins, with the quivering, smoky voices of men singing about girls they had loved. Indie rock, with an air of refinement. I was terrified of potentially scaring you off by bombastic beats and rhymes that would rip apart suckah-emcees blaring from my speakers. I didn't want to disappoint you. I mean, I am a big fan of indie too. But hip-hop tends to scare people at its first listen; it's more complicated than that, it requires patience and understanding. The subject matter is harsh, broken glass strewn along sidewalks; the speakers are broken, men walking barefooted on said glass. It's not like indie rock or pop rock or what have you, where you just take it as it is and accept it; you really have to go through a process to understand it. And I think we were the same way. Around you, I would constantly snip apart parts of my personality I thought you'd find abhorrent; I only gave you the prettiest parts of the truth, the glittering parts of me, to work off of. And I think you did the same.
When I look back at a lot of my writing during our period of time together, a lot of my stories would consist of not really knowing what constitutes an identity. The concurrent theme would be about not truly knowing who the other person is. You can imagine how maddening that feeling is. The person you so absolutely want to know, this person that you would like to introduce into the ongoing opera that is your life, you want to fit them in somehow, yeah? You were that world-renowned cellist from some foreign land that would really add something to this performance, and I'm the maestro who needed you to make my opera work. I mean, you have high expectations; as a musician of the highest caliber, you'd want to perform with someone who'd follow suit. So here I am, hiding my developing cello section, putting mutes on mediocre violins, dulling my brass, muffling my percussion, sticking metronomes near basses to try to make them suit your rhythm. My incompleteness, my imperfections, were something to be hidden around you; I wanted to suit you perfectly, or at least seem like I could.
*Le sigh.* It's not technically "lying" if you're only showing certain truths right? But it's still wrong. If we're to accept each other for who we truly are, we need to show everything and anything. It's not all sun-soaked lullabies and pretty girls serenading you. It's embittered men with the voices of broken bottles screaming at you as well. We can have the orchestras and the guitar accompaniments and all that but we need to understand that outside of that there are sad men reciting their frustrations like scripture to so many people too. I really wish that I had understood this so much sooner before, but it's too late now, we're too far into the song. The end of it will be messy and contrived and predictable; we are plummeting straight into a train wreck. But life isn't necessarily consisting of endings; at the end of this horrifying piece we're playing together there's a repeat sign. We can go back to the beginning and try again from note one, and you know what? If we play it like we want to we might just get the correct ending. It won't sound as pretty I guess, but it'll be perfect. I won't end up with you as a girlfriend but rather a much better friend. We won't force an ending upon ourselves that we think would be better, but rather produce something that is absolutely quintessential for who, what we are.
To summarize:
Thinking you're the Belle to my Sebastian, I tried to force myself to make it happen, as Bless would say (God bless 'em), making moves on you At the Drive-in, with the confidence and wit of the Wu-tang Clan, with my Jupiter Rising I tried to Hold Steady, get my act ready, I got your Love Signed Sealed Delivered by my Postal Service and my Death Cab for you, Cutie, Somebody's Baby as Jackson Brown would say, Anyone Else but You like Michael Cera and Ella Page. You Pretty Young Thing, P.Y.T haunting my dreams, Summer Breeze bringing with it simple melodies, Sunday Mornings spent thinking we could be, just like love songs from Sondre Lerche whenever I see you I hear piano keys clattering, it was you that I had Chain Me Free. But to speed up this Rhymefest we didn't get it right, Reggie without the Full Effect, like Kanye West with his mental defects, we were too overconfident, and look where we are, People under Stairs unable to see stars. Realizing that Nothing Lasts Forever, I realize that I Used to (still?) Love Her. So let's try again we're not some one-hit wonder, like Jay-Z or Nas we'll bring that hot fiyah.
...oh yeah I like spoken-word too.
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