Live, Love, and Hate – by Orpheus

 

Week 73 – Vanilla Coke days

 

            (7/31/05, just past midnight) I used to drink rather a lot of Vanilla Coke. I liked it, still do, but it’s never been my favorite soda. I drank so much of it because it made me think about R (if you don’t get that, don’t bother asking, not that anyone reads LLH anyway). And that is precisely why I will probably be going back and forth between binging on it and being sick at the sight of it for the next few months.

 

            Okay, that didn’t come out right. Nothing ever does. Um, I’m not sure if I’ve put up an LLH since this happened, but it’s finally officially over with R. It really sucks. And it’s all because of a stupid mistake I made eight months ago. Worst part is every time I try and talk to her about it, I always end up blaming her for it. I shouldn’t. It’s my fault, but I can never take that. I just can’t seem to accept that it’s my fault, and it was. And, I’m really sorry (okay, not strong enough word, but can’t think of a better one), R, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. If I could, I’d go back and change it, but I can’t.

 

            I’ve been thinking about asking R for another chance, hell, all but actually out and asked her. A couple things stopped me from doing that. One is the certainty that she wouldn’t take me back, and I guess I’m just afraid of hearing her turn me down on that because it’d be a certain end, and as it is, I can pretend that I still have a chance. The other is, I suppose, even worse. What if she does take me back, but then I screw up again, and it all winds up being the same?

 

            That being afraid of a certain ending is the same reason I’ve been putting off writing this column. It’s also the reason I haven’t yet taken her pictures out of my wallet. It’d be accepting that it was over. I don’t want to do that, because I really don’t want it to be over. Or even worse than ending up back here again would be if we wound up back together and things just kind of froze over, but never actually ended.

 

            Despite how I sounded in the above, I would be more than willing to give it another try. I’d love that.

 

Now, onto the menagerie portion of our column. We open with “Iris” by the Goo-Goo Dolls.

“And I'd give up forever to touch you

'Cause I know that you feel me somehow

You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be

And I don't want to go home right now

And all I can taste is this moment

And all I can breathe is your life

and sooner or later it's over

I just don't want to miss you tonight

And I don't want the world to see me

'Cause I don't think that they'd understand

When everything's made to be broken

I just want you to know who I am

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming

Or the moment of truth in your lies

When everything feels like the movies

Yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive

And I don't want the world to see me

'Cause I don't think that they'd understand

When everything's made to be broken

I just want you to know who I am

And I don't want the world to see me

'Cause I don't think that they'd understand

When everything's made to be broken

I just want you to know who I am

And I don't want the world to see me

'Cause I don't think that they'd understand

When everything's made to be broken

I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am”

               Now, Summer of Darkness, by Demon Hunter:

“I'll be the one last breath before this death

I'll be the final glimpse of truth when there's none left

And if I shame your face, degrade your faith

I'll be the first to hide behind disgrace

Blood-loss- on account of my failing aim

Treason- At the root of my shameful name

I found my way to fall

I never meant to break your heart

Breathing in this pain (rejecting all I am)

I hear you cry again (is this my final stand?)

Before I go (before I lose it all)

You should know (I hate myself for hurting you)

I see the burn of the light from within my grave

I feel the pain of contradiction despite decay

And if the shadow of doubt will betray this gain 

Then put an end to me now while the hope remains

Blood-loss- on the account of my failing aim

Treason- at the root of my shameful name

I found my way to fall

I never meant to break your heart

Breathing in this pain (rejecting all I am)

I hear you cry again (is this my final stand?)

Before I go (before I lose it all)

You should know (I hate myself for hurting you)

This is not my life

This is not our life

Every day I die 

This is not my life”

               Now, by the Crüxshadows, Monument:

“I never wrote you a love song

somehow words could not express what I needed to say.

and so I never wrote you a love song

and now its much, much too late 'cause you've gone away

But I will build this monument

to remember all the love we once had

and I'll close my eyes and make it how it used to be

I swear I never stopped loving you with everything I am

and it hurts so much to think you stopped loving me

So I wish I'd had written you a love song

and somehow you understood what it feels to be me

because the Angel loves the sprite forever

and does it unconditionally

But I will build this monument

to remember all the love we once had

and I'll close my eyes and make it how it used to be

I swear I never stopped loving you with everything I am

and it hurts so much to think you stopped loving me

you stopped loving me...”

               Next, Another Way by Bella Morte

“All this time everything felt so real as
All this time everything passed away
Another world crashes through the night
And another world fades away leaving dust in its darkness

I’ll find another way if I am still alive
And I will lift my head toward the sky
To find my way

               The school yard was empty. Or so Orpheus assumed. He’d finally left there. The Fetter had finally been snapped. He’d been aimlessly wandering around the Shadowland for what seemed to be centuries since then, though he knew it couldn’t have been even a month. 

               Now, he sat in eerily familiar position on the brink of a Nihil. 

               “Not like this,” whispered Eurydice and the Darker Part in unison (speaking of Eury, she’s back). 

               “Why not like this?” spoke up an unfamiliar voice from deep within Orpheus. He thought and thought about it, knowing he’d heard the voice many a long year ago. “Isn’t it just like what you did with that knife?” [no push that out] “No, you aren’t going to push it out. You took a knife to your wrists, Orpheus, you let your blood run free and died. Why not do it again?”

               “Because look where it got me last time,” he whispered, “do I really wa-” he cut himself off, finally realizing whose voice that long-forgotten speaker’s was. It was his own. And so he stood up, poised on the brink of the Nihil, and stretched his arms out wide.

               “Not like this,” they whispered.

               “When people run in circles. . . ” he replied.

End Live, Love, and Hate – season 4