”Baby don’t hurt me… don’t hurt me… no more!”
A chorus of laughter bubbles in that car—
and in that grey room with no walls
I’m laughing, too. I don’t know why. It’s not funny, but I feel like laughing anyway
”Love you”
I laugh when you laugh, that’s all.
It’s like how I cry when I watch you cry, right?
Look in the rearview mirror and you’ll see yourself reflected in my eyes.
I sit in the passenger seat. I do not drive, but I am the one who chooses what songs our hearts will sing
I choose the song I know your heart sings
I sing it too
I understand you more than myself.

”I love”
I was tangled in my lofty stars
I was in a living room
Alone, together with you
We realized you weren’t my world.
My world was “empathy”and “an inability to hate others”
Is that all it is? My universe is so empty.
I ran away.
I thought,
“I don’t know the words yet”
What great shame for a singer not to know the words, right?
So I ran away from that sofa where all of us could sit,
and into the grey room where I was alone.
Well— I wasn’t really alone.
You were there, too.
I ran from you into your arms.

“Love you”
when there is no I.
“I love”
when there is no you.
We will never be together.
It’s my fault. I’m the one who ran away.
…But I ran to you, right?
No. I can’t blame you. I’m just the passenger.
“I love you”
This thing between us…
It is the equation I will never solve.
It is the eternal quandary.
It is bridge, a shield, a prison.
It is my only hope and power.
It is my despair and undoing.
It is everything I have.
It is everything I can’t have.
It is a path that leads I to you.
It is a wall keeping I from you.

”I love you”
The simplest words to say,
The most difficult song to sing.