And I’ll be your cryin’ shoulder

As I take one day at a time, over and over again, I create mixed tapes in my head to her. I have been singing many of these songs to her long before I even knew who she was.

There was a point in time that I thought every song on this list was ridiculous, I couldn’t understand a few lines here or there. The lines that sound like exaggeration feel all too real now.

Here are the 90s pop songs playing on my radio. A few may drift from that decade and genre but they fit there to me.

This is just a darling way to bounce back from all of those emotions:

This might be the sound track to my life. I remember the moment and action that go with a few of these lines. When I just wanted her to know who I was – I started writing and never stopped.

Let me tell you about middle school dances… life was never pleasant for me but I don’t talk about that.

That’s god with a lowercase g, the concept.

We are going to continue down R&B lane for a moment so forgive me for that. I have been singing the next two songs a lot but I go got the John Michael Montgomery version as it is much easier for me to achieve. Well, I only sing it when I am alone, no one would want to hear all that.

All-4-One was one of my first CDs after Tragic Kingdom and Pieces of You, which I had received as Christmas gifts that year. My older cousin traded me a very scratched up All-4-One CD for who knows what, surely I got ripped off but that is where I first heard these two songs. That same year, a country artist covered them so I would hear the same songs in a country version on the radio with my grandparents – it was a confusing time and I didn’t understand why. (The reason was $$)

I realize that this 90s mix is quite cheesy but who could expect anything else. This is about the sentiment which is lightly scattered all over the place. Without further ado:

Oh how I loved this song as a teenager with no one to directed it to.

There are a few pop songs that I thought were so ridiculous that I couldn’t even listen to them. They fell into the Aqua – Barbie Girl category in my mind. When they grace my 90s station these days, I will admit, I listen to them and my thoughts drift – once again, the odd lyrics suddenly make a little sense. Brace yourself for bubblegum pop.

One more and I will climb out of this rabbit hole.

So I guess if I could say anything to her – it would be all of that. Another song that I have caught myself listening to when it comes on is one that I felt was the most over played song of my life:

I’ll wrap this up and get back to reality. For the next and final song in this series, it will be hard to believe that I had not heard it before a few years ago after she used ‘Round here’ in a very impactful text message. It seems as though it has been around for over 30 years so I may have just over looked it but when it comes on these days – I stop – I listen and I try my hardest to come up with a plan that will work.

Have you ever tried to find the words but they don’t come out right?

Today has been really difficult to hold it together. Last Tuesday was an emotional roller coaster and I still don’t know what’s going on, but I have a good idea.

The flame extinguisher is at it again and its far more serious than I can express here.

Then this song came on the radio when I was coming home from Jeremy’s house. I enjoyed it too much and then laughed at the thought – in 1998, this is certainly what I was listening to and I have some very nice archived tapes to prove it.

Around 1998, I was in middle school – enjoying cable TV in my own bedroom. Within a few years, I would be tying up the home telephone line for hours downloading these songs on Napster. That may have come a few years later.

Gravity is nothing to me

Today has been really difficult for me. Its been a month since we were supposed to meet at the glass blowing shop and the following night, she messaged me at 5 am stating that she broke up with C and the rest of her message frightened me to the core.

I have been searching for a way to talk to her without censorship and I have been failing greatly.

The darker it is around me

the easier it is to see inside

outside the glass
the whole world is magnified

and it’s half an inch
from here to the other side

I have yet to mention the shift in all the random ass memes and shit I have been seeing. Talk about my poems suddenly shifting from in love to devastated, how can accounts that I am following even do that?

This here was posted by some random human that I actually don’t know but I just had to save it somewhere – you know, in case I needed the perfect outline for any future letters. This is not some weird confession that I am bisexual, but don’t think I haven’t considered trying it several times over if it meant that I was treated like a normal human, but that all stems back to something old, from a post a read – that, I just don’t think goes on anymore, but as you can imagine, I never even asked.

But anyway.. this is my life and why I can’t have real friends. Well, it’s not like I do this often, but when I do – her boyfriend tells her to tell me to go fuck the right off.. it’s complicated..

May be a Twitter screenshot of text that says 'Lane Moore Washington DC Augus... @hellolanemoore bisexual friends be like "I value ur friendship and I am not objectifying you, and also you are so hot it makes me want to cry and I genuinely want to marry you, but only if you WANT to! and if you don't want to that's ok and I'll respectfully pine for you always, as a friend!!!" Posted in r/bi_irl by u/lack-of-identity reddit'

I don’t think war is noble

The last couple of weeks have been really difficult on me. I was left stunned and completely speechless when I read her message and then as the day went on and she never returned, my anxiety started to build. I must have been in some sort of denial telling me that she would come back and at least read my messages – but she still has not.

Everything she has said to me over the last three years or really the entire eight and a half years doesn’t just go away. I can’t forget the incredible things that she said nor can I shake the moments that were on the more tragic point in life.

When I woke up in the beginning of August, I knew that it was just a matter of time before she took a phone break for his birthday – now I am left hoping that it only lasts a month or even a year this time.

I am not sure what I was supposed to think or do. What did walking away even mean? Why did she say she wanted to live with me? Why oh why do I let this hurt so damn bad.

Last night I went to Austin, trying to go out with my sister. Things didn’t go as planned. I ended up crying in a gas station parking lot when my car didn’t start right away and almost drove off without taking the gas pump out of my car. A guy saw and ran over and stopped me – I was still crying at that point. I drove home from south Austin crying and not knowing what to do. That’s what I kept thinking about why he would be extra mad when he found out it was me and not the other way around. I thought about how I betrayed him – because I was so excited to know her – and now, I am not even allowed to know her.

I have been screaming every pop song that’s been speaking to me – and crying a lot. I am not cut out for war.

I’ve got the memory of your warm skin in my hands

When Ani announced her tour this year, I looked at the tour dates and picked Meow Wolf or Lake Tahoe to attempt to attend. Both are over 500 miles from my house – one 3 times that. With the budget and inability to see my love, the plans fell through but here is Swan Dive from a show I dreamed of attending.

It’s also a song that’s really special to me from an album that I have grown to love.

The other night I made this art as the second piece in a series that I call Ani DiFranco Paint Splatter. It was displayed on my Deviant Art account.