I waited a year to write this essay. A year. And now, it seems ridiculous given that US citizens are disappearing, and people are being sent to death camps in El Salvador and the president of the United States is violating orders from the Supreme Court. So, I’m just going to keep it short.
Saturday, April 19th, was my twelve-year anniversary. (Love you, boo.)
But it also happened to be the one-year anniversary of Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poet’s Department. I waited a year to reflect on the album, the highs and lows of it. How it demolished me, broke my heart, unhealed parts of me that I thought were fine. How, when people said they didn’t like it, I felt happy for them, because it meant that they had never had their hearts obliterated by someone they loved, or to have a future that seemed so clear come crashing down on itself in slow motion. On the one-year anniversary of Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poet’s Department, there are still songs I struggle to listen to, and it will go down in my personal annals as one of the most heartbreaking albums I have ever known- so much so that I had to stop listening to it for awhile because it was just unearthing too many things. I had to give myself time to sit with the feelings, and the songs, and the melodies that swirled through my veins. When I went back to it, I had to tiptoe myself back into it, track by track. And at the end of the day, this album just simply is a masterpiece- and if you don’t get it, consider yourself lucky.
While there were a few months that you couldn’t pry it from my cold, dead, Spotify list once I went back to it, I don’t listen to it much anymore. And I can’t help but think that is kind of by design.
The only thing that's left is the manuscript
One last souvenir from my trip to your shores
Now and then I re-read the manuscript
But the story isn't mine anymore.Like, I swear to God she took us on this journey with her so that we could heal too. I don’t know how that fucking woman does it but goddammit she is a genius. She took us through our own highs and lows to finish our own manuscript or whatever- and just like re-reading it from time to time, I only need to go back and revisit this album from time to time.
But anyway, I had more to say, but today, I can’t stop thinking about Nazi Germany. So, sorry Tay, I had to keep it short.
My next essay will be on Nazi Germany- or, I guess I should say, Nazi Germany adjacent. You have been warned.