Thursday 29 April 2010

Tim Buckley - Song To The Siren

What music do I like? Well I could say a lot... but I love Tim Buckley. His voice makes me cry. I can't explain it. This one song - "Song To The Siren" (1969 Monkees or Works in Progress demo) - just... effects me. See, since, well I can't remember when, it seems it's always been with me, but I guess from around the age of 12 I remember first feeling this unbearable pain. Pain I'd never even thought existed which swallowed me whole.
During my adolescence I drank... a lot. Took drugs, smoked... hurt myself. Something I'm so ashamed of. I wasn't alone. Although we never said anything, we all knew we did it. It was known through no words, and didn't disrupt our friendship at all. I was so ashamed, but I didn't care. It sounds like an oxymoron but it makes sense to me. Disgusted and confused and ashamed of myself, yet I didn't care if the world knew. I would walk round drunk with scars on show and not care because nothing could hurt me as much as this.
I remember vividly before walking to school for an exam I slashed up my arms to the point where you couldn't even see flesh, just endless blood. It scared me. I had always done it to feel something - for the control, the sense of release, the distraction from this pain I felt and could never explain or comprehend. I wasn't proud, but it made me feel sane. It gave me a sense of calm. This time I just felt numb. I felt nothing, just a void. My mind hazed and eyes started to hurt. Maybe that's why I slashed up so bad. I don't even remember myself doing it. I'd always felt something before, but now I didn't even feel control.
It was at this time that I started listening to Tim Buckley. The first time I heard Song to the Siren I just collapsed. My body went loose, my mind was in a daze. My chest filled with such pain I couldn't suppress it. For a few seconds I couldn't breath, and the pit of my belly felt empty. And strangely, I felt overwhelmed. A sense of joy and love rushed through me, from my chest to the tips of my fingers and toes. I cry. Everything I've repressed pours out and I can't stop myself. All I'm left with is this sense of calm.
I decided to stop hurting myself. It was too terrifying. With that, I gave up the heavy drinking and the drug use. I still have my box of pills. I can't throw them away. I still add to them, and they still wait for the day of my suicide. But although I'm not happy, I leave them untouched. I stopped hanging out with certain people and threw myself into college. It was hard because I was so behind from the years of ignoring work. I'm now in my last few weeks of my undergraduate degree. When I was 14 I never thought I'd get this far.
I still have this pain, the pain whose origins I do not know. Why I am cursed with this I do not know. If I'll survive it I do not know. All I know is that when I turn on my CD and listen to Tim Buckley's Song to the Siren it's like the first time I heard it. My chest is overwhelmed with pain, and love which spreads to my fingers and toes. My body goes loose and my mind's in a daze. I feel emptiness in my stomach, I can't breath... and I cry.

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