Gracie Abrams and the vastness of unrequited love
Last year in August, I saw Gracie Abrams open for Taylor Swift in Los Angeles. To prepare, I gave her entire discography an honest try. At the time I was in what I thought was a happy relationship, so I’m sorry but her songs just didn’t hit — people say Taylor Swift only writes breakup songs, but Gracie Abrams truly almost only writes breakup songs. Girlie has truly gone through it. At the time, I just couldn’t relate.
A few months later in December, I ended my first serious relationship. Enter, once again, Gracie. I don’t remember exactly how I reconnected with her music, but I was instantly gutted by this line from “I know it won’t work” off her debut album Good Riddance: “I hate to look at your face and know that we’re feeling different.”
In the wake of my heartbreak, I listened to that song over and over for a month straight. “And part of me wants you back,” she croons over a high energy pop-ish beat, “but I know it won’t work like that, huh?”
I have never felt so unloveable and undesired as I did in the last days of that relationship. When it ended, the emptiness felt so vast, so incurable. But I am nothing if not resilient. When I broke up with my ex, I was resigned and knew I would eventually be okay — if I was able to heal from the death of my father, the worst thing that could have ever happened to me, then surely I would be able to recover from a broken heart caused by a silly commitment-phobe of a man.
But I have a nasty habit of trading out objects of my yearning and running into the arms of another. I’m aware that I have a bad habit of using someone to get over someone else. I met my ex a mere two weeks after I had a nervous breakdown because I felt like I was never going to get over an insane crush I had on a fellow writer who politely rejected me when I made my feelings known. Instead of really sitting with that discomfort, I met my ex and swapped out one obsession for another.
This January, exactly one month after my breakup, I met someone I can only describe as a boy, not a man. He was age-appropriate (unlike my ex) and one of the smartest yet most foolish people I have ever met. I was instantly smitten. Just like that, I was out of my ex’s arms and in someone else’s.
This summer, Gracie Abrams released her second album, The Secret of Us. To promote her new music, she gave an interview where she expressed how fun the songwriting for the new album was. When she was writing Good Riddance, it felt serious and sad. When writing these new songs, she found herself laughing at how dramatic she can be.
My rebound “situationship”was like that. The poetry collection I published earlier this year is full of melodramatic poems about my dead dad and my complicated relationship with my ex, and I never felt good when writing any of it. But with this rebound, I found myself almost feeling like more of an observer of it all rather than a participant — I was witnessing how obsessive and unhinged I was becoming, but there was an element of control to it, like I was watching from the outside and making calculated decisions, maybe something like a video game simulation of my life. In feeling jaded by my past serious relationship, I was inclined to somewhat disconnect from my typical insanity. When I wrote these poems about this boy, I found myself amused and entertained by my own melodrama. I was aware that I could cut him off any time, that I could keep on seeing other people, and I did both.
Historically, October is hard for me — this year, the pattern endured. Four years ago my father died in October, and six years ago, in October, I had my worst ever manic depressive episode. Every October, the ghosts of my entire past come back to haunt me and I fall into what feels like a seasonal depression. I am encumbered by the weight of every woe and sorrow I’ve ever had. Historically, and this year as well, I turn to poetry to make it better.
This year, I did something a little different — I wrote a song.
13 years after the first time I picked up a guitar, I’m still kind of a novice. I never really nailed barre chords, and I don’t practice enough to have constant calluses on my fingers. At the time of this writing, most of the fingers on my left hand are sore from how many times I’ve played my song for myself. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt inclined to rhyme, but sometimes, when I’m going crazy, I need an outlet — any outlet. I don’t drink or smoke or really even party at all, and I don’t allow myself caffeine after 12 PM. Songwriting felt like something therapeutic that could shake up my usual irregular prose poetry.
Three months ago, I saw the silver boy from my poems and song for what I thought would be the last time. I told him that I hate him and maybe love him and he wouldn’t stop kissing my hands. It was one of the most bizarre and intimate experiences I have ever had. When he left that night, he told me he knew I’d come back eventually. This turned out to be true.
So, the saga of my almost year-long rebound has yet to reach an ending. I’m sure that if it ever does truly end, I’ll find some way to melodramatically mark the chapter closed in the form of poetry and/or prose, and it will no doubt be immortalized on this silly blog, much like many other things have been.
In “Free Now” off The Secret of Us, Gracie sings, “If you find yourself out, if there is a right time / Chances are I’ll be here, we could share a lifeline.” I think I was kind of channeling that sentiment when I wrote: “Think I’ll still be here at the end of every mile / you have to run to get your way for once.”
Consider this tweet (https://x.com/clintoris/status/1848081752352604196) that basically says we shouldn’t “pathologize” the experience of having a crush. I feel like I’ve always wanted to jump to the conclusion of there being a kind of dark psychology behind my every thought and action, but sometimes, love is just what it is — love — even if I hesitate to call it love ten months since our first meeting. Sometimes it feels unrequited and other times it doesn’t.
I deny myself most vices. At the height of my impulsivity, I reached out for a reconnection. It didn’t go poorly. I think these days I just think life is too short to hold anything in. I remember that I used to think life is too long, but now that I have experienced grief many times, I know that what they all say is true — it’s too short.
If nothing else, I’ll have more to write about. I can’t complain about that.
