I still remember… the first time I heard the song.
I was lying down on my bed. We were talking about the black pullover I had sent you for your birthday. Remember the first care package ever? It made you weep like a fucking baby.
That reminded you of the first time you’d heard Conan Gray sing Heather.
I was so determined to become whatever you needed that I immediately went on a purposeful mission to search for the song. And like everything else I did for you, I was successful.
I loved the minimalistic opening and Conan’s soft, breathy, almost fragile voice just let me get lost. I started to listen with the smallest smile.
But as the little bar on Spotify edged closer to the precipice on the right, I stood rooted to the spot as I saw a catastrophe unfold.
I felt the blood leaving my heart. I had entered the void… again.
To this day I can’t explain whose voice it is. The one that that whispers into my ears those tiny truths that I know will become flames that will engulf me.
This time it said:
This is going to be a beautiful song to break up with her to.
I tried to rewrite the lugubrious tableau that the voice foretold.
I blasted it when we were jumping with joy, happy and spent in each other’s arms. In the hope that me sugar coating that ominous lyric with your warm embrace might just change its meaning.
It’s been playing on repeat whenever I am able to retreat into my space to break. And I realized just now that the meaning for the song had changed.
I feel for Conan. I’ve walked many a mile in his shoes… trying to duplicitously create a facade in the hopes it would deceive people into staying forever.
Only this time, I changed you. I saw you for what you could become. The delicately beautiful Tulip that would one day bloom fully into herself.
I saw you break out of the shackles that bound you. Caste, age, societal expectations… every puritanical leash decimated by your agency. To claim whatever your heart decided. To abandon the Doctor for the Baker.
To claim me. To stay.
That sky blue angel that I had manifested with such verisimilitude just mesmerized me. Alas! To fall in love with potential is such an intoxicating quixotic crime.
Which is why I sit here today… alone… and I sing in the voice of Conan Gray:
Why won’t you ever choooooooose meeeeeeee,
You know that I’m more than worthyyyyyyyyyyy.
I gave you my sweater,
It was cashmeeeeeeere.
But you chose familiar, over foreverrrrrrr
I wish you were Heather.
