Lullaby

It's the way that you blush when you're nervous.
It's your ability to make me earn this.
I know that you're tired, just let me sing you to sleep.
It's about how you laugh out of pity, 'Cause lets be honest I'm not really that funny.
I know that you're shot, just let me sing you to sleep.

If you need anything, just the say the word.
I mean anything.
Rest assured, if you start to doze, then I'll tuck you in,
Plant my lips where your necklaces close.

I don't know exactly what it is about this song, but the raw emotion and energy it possesses cut through me like a knife composed purely of former loves and buried heartbreaks. Reading the lyrics alone is enough to bring my thoughts to a stand still and my heart rate to an idle. Perhaps it just strikes a certain nerve that normally lays dormant, layered beneath sheets of defenses constructed solely to prevent this sort of visceral and openly deep reaction. Yet this softly sung and simply crafted tune burrows beneath all that to affect me and illicit the most natural of reactions. If I actually focus on each verse and the powerful blend of pain and love in Nick Thomas' voice, I shed a tear and need a minute to regroup.


It's those pills that you don't need to take,
medicating perfection, now that's a mistake.
I know that you're spent, just let me sing you to sleep.
It's your finger and how I'm wrapped around it.
It's your grace and how it keeps me grounded.
I know that you're weak, just let me sing you to sleep.

If you need anything, just the say the word.
I mean anything.
Rest assured, if you start to doze, then I'll tuck you in,
Plant my lips where your necklaces close.

I know I'm flawed, almost literally to a fatal extent, in falling for girls that are flawed in their own right. My mother and my best girl friends all point to my nurturing nature as some sort of backwards reasoning for this. More often than not, the girl who has issues that she is working through is more attractive than the average plain Jane. It's not that I find girls that have it together boring, it's more that girls who are working through something seem more real. Unfortunately or fortunately enough this also gives way to an interesting common ground between us.

This song seems particularly poignant in reference to two of my past relationships. The latter was with a girl who consistently self-medicated in hopes of dealing with her limitless stress and anxiety. In fact, we both did, but months after I had gotten in control and clean (thanks to an enormous amount of support from her), she would still fall into stretches of chaotic mess. This song speaks to those long nights sitting beside her and wiping her brow as she sweat endlessly and came down from her highs. As much as that ended as a relationship of convenience, whenever I hear this song I think of writing her an e-mail and seeing how med-school is treating her. I can't believe that same girl, the one with disdain for the world and her heart full of hurt, is going to be such a noble and astute contributor to society within months... but I digress.

While you were sleeping I figured out everything,
I was constructed for you, and you were molded for me.
Now I feel your name, coursing through my veins.
You shine so bright it's insane, you put the sun to shame.

It's this last verse that fuels the fire that still burns for an old flame (read: will it ever go out?). The sweetness of its composition and the passion in Thomas' voice as he strains over each vowel and consonant brings only thoughts of her to my mind. Granted her troubles sprouted after our relationship ended and most probably, in part, due to the strain that our relationship, or more specifically I , put on her mental state. But I can't help but feel a unpronounceable connection to these lyrics and the melody draws me back to a more unstable time when I knew exactly what she was going through but was forced apart from her.

Despite miles and years, I will always hold an unusual bond to her. I can speak truly and purely and say she has been my one true love, at least thus far. Her face and name course through my every breath and every pulse of my heart despite how suppressed I keep them. In some sense it is because she is me, I am her. We were young and foolish but together we shaped out the depths of each others personalities. She cut me into the mold of better man with her love and forced me in that mold with our parting. When I meet the girl I want to make my wife, even she will know that this first love has carved me into what I am today.

Through many nights I lie awake thinking of what she might have been doing. Most night I know she is ultimately happy. Other nights I tremble knowing that she is going through some pain. Occasionally she will call me on such nights, and while it hurts to know she is down, it feels good to know she is not out. It's on these nights that this song plays through on silently through my head.

We've gotten quite distant in the past three years. In fact I wonder if I'd recognize how much she's grown since. I know I'd still love her. I still love the core of what makes her who she is. Despite it all, rightly or wrongly, I know that to this day I know that if ever comes a time that she needs me, I would do anything for her. I mean anything.