III - romanticism is a slow death

written by delikately

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LYRICS

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DON'T CALL ME ROSE

by delikately

Don’t call me Rose. I wasn’t soft. I was silent. There’s a difference. You called it elegance. I called it survival. You didn’t love me. You loved the idea of who I almost became. The version that stayed quiet, smiled on cue, and made you feel important. I was never your sculpture. You didn’t chisel me into anything. You just tried to sand down what you couldn’t handle. I wasn’t your muse. I was the one holding the knife. And still, you called yourself the artist. You wanted someone obedient. I asked questions. You wanted me soft. I wanted to be understood. You wanted someone who whispered. I spoke. And you flinched. You needed a ghost. I had a pulse. You mistook my silence for grace, my detachment for devotion. You thought I was made to be admired, not to be reckoned with. So no. Don’t call me Rose. Call me what I became when silence stopped being safe. Unmade. Unmoved. Unforgiving. And entirely mine.

DISSOLVE

by delikately

i left before you noticed i was leaving ghosted myself on the way out left fingerprints on the bathroom mirror thought they’d mean something but they fogged over, too i rationed my hope like rations in war each kiss a truce each silence a trapped door i don’t cry. i dissolve not loud. not dramatic just slightly less every day you looked at me like i was an afterthought you meant to feel but couldn’t get around to i gave you the whole thing anyway you never saw it but i came undone slowly flaw by flaw not tragic. just missing i dissolve she burned like an 8mm reel spooled backwards frame by frame i only spoke when you hit record thought maybe you’d finally hear me i’ve been breaking myself down each piece a chapter burned until nothing’s left but the girl who never asked i unraveled discreetly but also on purpose you didn’t ask why i got quiet you just got used to it i don’t break. i fade like receipts in your glove box you didn’t watch me go but i watched you stay exactly the same i dissolve like sugar in a cup you never finished you drank what you needed and left the rest to rot i tried to stay in ways like a witness you coached no grounds for objection just me taking the fall so you could cite it as resolved but i dissolved before goodbye arrived a ghost who learned to haunt herself i don’t cry. i dissolve not shattering. not anymore just a version of me too tired to argue i dissolve like testimony struck from the record a presence you swore was never really there.

B-Side

by delikately

b side heard you're spinning your a-side, baby, loud in some downtown dive i'm the needle in the ashtray, playing soft where ghosts survive you liked your girls like vinyl— scratchy, soft-spoken, easy to forget. you said “don’t tell” i said “don’t worry.” but i’ve seen the reel, and i know the story. you played me backwards, just for the thrill not a b-side, no, no. i’m not your b-side, baby i’m the headline track the one that hits harder on your way back you pressed me down like a hidden shame but i rise in the groove that still screams your name. call it vintage, say i’m through but i’m your favorite song when you’re alone not your almost or the space in between i’m the lyric in your veins, spiked with dopamine. told my name like a rumor yeah, it lingered, then it died now she wears your jacket but i bled through the lining inside you said i think too much i said you drink to blur a tragedy in sunglasses, dancing slow where the fast girls were. you said i was too ironic yeah, i’m post-love. platonic. but you kept my voice on loop soft-spite lullabies, your late-night tonic. i’m not your b-side, baby, i’m the aftershock that vinyl hiss between your high and your stop. i wrote the verse you still hum in your sin call it vintage, say i’m through but i’m your favorite song when you’re alone not your almost or the space in between i’m the lyric in your veins, spiked with dopamine. thought you could shelve me, play me low needle in my chest— and you call that still? you played me backwards, just for the thrill not a b-side. no. let the tape hiss. let the moon skip. (ooh) you liked me naive, all nerve, tight-lipped taught me restraint with a trembling jawline you framed the cover— i framed the crime spin me when your new girls bore you but i won’t skip to adore you. (nope) not your almost. not your if. i’m not your secret track— i’m the whole damn record. i’m your b-side, baby—unsold truth the heartbreak anthem of your youth. i’m the silence after sex, your guilty vinyl silhouette still draped in regret— a pretty pause in your pantomimed sin. (again, again) thought you could shelve me— play me low needle in my chest, and you call that still? you spun me backwards, just for the thrill not a b-side. no... not this girl.

Boys On Fire Escaping Churches

by delikately

he smoked through sermons, twice my age and ten times jaded. said, “you’re the kind of sin that forgives itself,” then built a temple out of my grief. i remember the hymns how they taught us to starve every hunger we couldn’t name in daylight.. [refrain] we were boys on fire escaping churches. crosses hung crooked, hands behind our backs. he taught me scripture whispered things boys shouldn’t hear. our love wasn’t tender it cleaved. methodical. slow. a testament you could still bleed. if this was holy, we rewrote it. if this was love, we postponed it. but even now i’d burn it all again. mm i let him draw stigmata with his mouth, just to feel what blasphemy tastes like. he called me heaven i called him “wrong place, right night.” i remember the hymns how they taught us to starve every hunger we couldn’t name in daylight. we were boys on fire escaping churches. rosaries wrapped around wrists, taught me how secrets taste when kept. our love wasn’t tender it cleaved. methodical. slow. a testament you could still bleed. if this was holy, we rewrote it. if this was love, we postponed it. but even now i’d burn it all again. he said, “if god made us, then he made us wrong.” i said, “maybe he made us too right and they just couldn’t take it.” the church bells rang like sirens that night we skipped the part where saints forgive no miracles mm. no who knows anymore. yeah, we were boys on fire matchstick convictions, smoke for intentions and i still taste you, deep in my throat like scripture i never believed but learned by rote if guilt was a game, he set the board played god in whispers then swore i asked for it “this never happened,” he said but even now... ha i’d burn it all again.

Forever Is For Tourists

by delikately

i don’t live here i just leave lipstick on the keycard checked in at room 303 hung my heartbreak by the minibar i’ve seen people gamble with devotion like it’s a party trick and i’m not naive just tired of pretending i don’t notice i book escape routes. i burn the maps still, i look back god, what’s up with that? i don’t send postcards from the messes i’ve made just a tightness in my chest where the truth won’t stay love doesn’t land just drifts west yeah, i know i pack light but i still bring hope even when i swear i’ve outgrown that trick forever’s for tourists and i never packed for that you said forever like a sales pitch cute i watched it curl like a french cigarette slow burn i carry heartbreak like exhibit tags tiny facts under a mess of feeling you dressed it up like it meant something i say “i know better” like that’s ever helped love’s just another thing i perform too well i don’t send postcards from the messes i’ve made just a tightness in my chest where the truth won’t stay love doesn’t land just drifts west yeah, i know i pack light but i still bring hope even when i know that knowing better changes nothing forever’s for tourists and i was never staying long sweet nothings in press-release tone you said i was “too much” for a house half-built truth is, i could’ve made you feel known like, really known you say i vanish like a ghost or a twist but i just leave when the script gets lazy at most i asked for depth, not a scenic detour you kept rerunning lines like this was a tour you loved the outline neat, composed but skipped the margins where i bled prose i don’t send postcards i send disclaimers in verse love used to mean something now it just hurts it was a language i turned it into a curse i don’t wait at gates letting go’s just muscle memory now but i still dream in too much and maybe hope’s a ghost in a hotel robe still knocking still pacing still aching to go ’cause forever is for tourists and i never booked the roundtrip home never did. never will.

Love Me Like a Conspiracy (Theory)

by delikately

mm... red wine prints, gold ash in the sink lipstick red, my age classified mind too loud, skirt just right your suit: ash-grey, cufflinks catching candlelight silver tongue but love already died whispers blurred in midnight halls time meant nothing i still took the fall you warned, “you’ll be the end of me” i smiled, “suppose” then marked your soul in a shade only i chose so love me like a code you can’t decrypt but keep trying anyway eyes wide shut, don’t look too clearly kiss me like a crime scene slow and dirty sing my name like it’s under a breath, not worthy hold me like an alibi you almost trust tell the story wrong but make it just flash me like a scandal, not a memory love me like a... love me like a conspiracy mm... you wore control like cufflinks, but i watched it slip the first time i didn’t wince when you gripped my wrist you bought me books to read between the sheets (ha) i wrote our story in ink too deep thought i’d be your cult classic not some thrift-store relic (guess that’s your aesthetic) i aged in reverse, the way you looked through me kept the secrecy wore it like satin, naïveté love me like your sealed case file still open in your sleep like i hacked your fate, made you believe me hide my name between sins and cities tattooed on your rib, where she’ll never see me touch me like a backroom deal gone wrong send your guilt to god, your dreams to me love me like a... love me like a conspiracy time warped our nights stretched forever your forbidden hymn, like guilt made it holy like sin wore skin love me like a body you buried and dream of when it rains and miss me like i left a trail you said i’d ruin you i smiled like a threat “ladies and gentlemen of the jury ” he said i was dangerous. but isn’t it strange how often he returned to the crime scene? mm, you can hide the proof, destroy the footage but your shadow still bleeds me yearly say my name like a closing argument the verdict you can’t deny kiss me like i never told the truth but damn, you know i did call it madness, call it youth but you’ll always call me what you hid your theory. (say it.) conspiracy. (one more time.) conspiracy. love me like a... love me like a conspiracy... huh. theory.

Premature Nostalgia

by delikately

i watched you walk through the fluorescent spill of the 24-hour supermarket, hands in pockets like you weren’t holding something back. and i thought god, i’ll never get this version of you again. i was pretending not to notice, how everything about us already felt like a throwback premature nostalgia our final religion and baby, i’ve built an altar out of your “right now” you’re not gone, but i’m already archiving clutching the moment like it’s antique china cracking jokes like elegies in drag smile lacquered in future grief falling for moments that are already leaving me you looked cinematic in that liminal hour golden, in that decaying, unreliable kind of way like a sun-stained letter i forgot i sent i kissed you like a habit, or a psalm god, we’re gonna call this "the good part" one day, aren’t we? i was pretending not to notice, how everything about us already felt like a throwback romanticism is a slow death early mourning and I’m dying in the middle of it you’re not gone, but i’m already archiving clutching the moment like it’s antique china cracking jokes like elegies in drag smile lacquered in future grief falling for moments that are already leaving me this love’s still warm, but browning at the edges falling for moments that are already leaving me i grieve in real-time, like a scholar of sorrow your youth peeling at the corners like old polaroids and me? i’m curating, annotating your laughter like it’s already out of print you’re still here but i’m embalming you sweetly perfumed with memory, preserved in irony this isn’t a breakup it’s a preservation ritual a eulogy dressed as affection and you you’re the patron saint of slipping away premature nostalgia our final religion smiling while my heart rehearses the end ah.

I Think I Loved the Idea of You Dying

by delikately

you left the door half open unsure whether you’d return or if i'd follow your footsteps carried faint apologies i held my breath that was all i could do i didn’t want to be your everything just the one you’d never forget i think i loved the idea of you dying without me keeping a piece of me, no one else could see not to cause you pain, but to remain etched in your memory a wound you dressed in lines of poetry i sleep through days just to dream you're still near your shadow's weight, a comfort i still bear - i'd rather see you fade from view, than give your love to someone new i didn’t want to be your everything just the one you’d never forget i think i loved the thought of you remembering me quietly, not to haunt your days rather live in ways you couldn’t name a ghost in every rhyme, that learned to sing in time. i no longer pine for you not as i once did, only the girl who wist she'd turn to dust, on your keepsakes, too sacred to sweep, not your evermore just your never-thrown-away, the ache you fold into the linen drawer, still warm with my name, no wrath, no vengeance only a wretched vow that linger in the seams of your forgetting. i think i loved the idea of you dying without me your heart still mine in some quiet eternity (quiet eternity) i asked not to be your all, nor your always, but the scar the years could not conceal, on a monument, soft and silent …forever remembered, never reclaimed.

Ghostwriting my own goodbye

by delikately

if i could die here, no one would clap. no curtain call. no flowers on the set. just the soft thud of a closing door and silence dressed in cigarette regret. i was always the stand-in, never the girl they cast. (never…) the room went quiet after i left. (so quiet) not out of grief just disinterest. an extra in my own descent, scripted pain, improvised indifference. if it wasn’t real, why did it ruin me? i stayed just long enough to leave dramatically. now i’m ghostwriting my own goodbye tragic, detached, and critically acclaimed. rotting in real time, but at least it's beautifully framed. where do all the versions of me go? (where?) the ones i invented just to be adored. girls with softer edges, who flinch quieter, cry prettier. your silence wasn’t loud just listless you didn’t leave you just forgot to stay. we didn’t break we bled out slow like aspirin ghosting in a glass of yesterday. if it wasn’t real, why did it ruin me? i stayed just long enough to make it art. now i’m ghostwriting my own goodbye tragic enough to get five stars. called it closure, but it was an exit wound. and i dressed it like a fashion mood. i was always the stand-in, never the girl they cast. i left her behind like an old costume cheap, ill-fitting, soaked in someone else's script. beautiful in the post-credit scene faces blurred, but still dramatic. i didn’t want closure. i wanted the monologue (say it…) and you gave me that unwritten, unresolved, but devastatingly aesthetic. (just like us.) so here lies the girl who romanticized heartbreak like it paid rent. you won’t miss her but you might quote her. (you will.) yours, forever.