I just discovered Frightened Rabbit, a Scottish indie rock band with which I'm quickly falling in love.  Or, more accurately:  I've fallen, and now I'm listening to their soul-invading music on repeat and soaking up the nuances and luxuriating in the mild but insistent melodies and the heart-stopping lyrics.  Jesus is just a Spanish boy's name, how come one man got so much fame?  The opening line of Head Rolls Off (off their sophomore album The Midnight Organ Flight from 2008) makes you sit up and simultaneously settle back into your chair.  So much beauty.

That was never my worry.  I'm working on my backwards walk, walking with no shoes or socks, and the time rewinds to the end of May, I wish we'd never met that met that day.  I was never concerned that there wasn't enough beauty in the world.  If anything, I haven't the time to devote enough attention to each beautiful thing I discover.  Often I purposefully close my eyes to a potentially beautiful new experience because I'm overwhelmed by the bounty by which I'm already surrounded.  Is that sad, or is it exquisite?

The thing about life that you don't realize in your youth - even if you didn't have a blissful childhood - is that some things can't be taken back.  Some things, once done, are done forever.  Friendships end.  Relationships fail.  Words are spoken.  Actions are taken.  Oh you won't find love in a, won't find love in a hole.  It takes more than fucking someone to keep yourself warm.  There are mistakes that can't be unmade, and that's certainly a truth whose unmistakable veracity it's taken me years to acknowledge.  People aren't dispensable.  They're not.  No matter how personable, witty, beautiful, intelligent, special, unique, or talented you are, there will come a day when you'll walk into a room and nobody will want to talk to you.  Everybody will be paired, or you'll remind them of their ex.  We can change our partners, this is a progressive dance, but remember it was me who dragged you up to the sweaty floor.  Sometimes it turns out you've snubbed the one with whom you're meant to grow old.  But what does that mean?  That you were never in fact meant to grow old with him or her after all?  Or - more likely, and enough to send small chills up and down your spine for days - that you'll never live the life you were born to live?

I think I'll write another haiku.

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I think of you each day
You've chosen life without me
We could be happy

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