You’re not just anyone
I don’t know where the song came from. Ask any of my friends, they know I listen to a lot of music. Like, a lot, a lot. I thought it might have been from some playlist I added to my library, where I accidentally tapped the little “+” button that made it part of my music. I know that it didn’t come from any of those playlists, I checked. Multiple times. And when I listened to it, I knew I’d never heard it before. The process won’t stop after you hear it anyway, if it chooses you. The song opens with some distortion, thick and deeply textured that soon builds in a vibrant synth rhythm. Upbeat and fast, shining, luscious keys that never lose a bit of roughness around the edges. It captured me right there, the instrumentals pulling me in before the vocals even start.
Even though we’re not supposed to
Oh, the vocals. Relaxed, but not lazy, and with obvious cheer behind them, as if the vocalist might be grinning as he sings to you. It pairs perfectly with the synths, and the mixing is exquisite, production too. After we get through the first through verses, though…something else starts. Same entrancing instrumentals, beat, and voice, but now there’s a new energy behind them. A fervor. The grand backing synths shrink, losing some of their consistent mellow sound and pitching higher. The drums become faster, frequent, and soft keys sail across the melody like a hazy field of stars, rising up the scales to match the vocals, moving upwards in the same way. There’s still an element of the calm from before, but this has a more manic energy. Something is coming. Energy is flowing, transforming, recombining as the pitch rises. And you can’t cross the line but you can’t stop trying. It repeats over and over. As if it’s tempting you to do something.
I’d rather be too close to
Then, it shifts. The desperate energy remains but becomes backing for new vocals and instrumentals, those too rising further above the fervor of the previous crescendo. It is begging for your attention, manic but calm, mellow but intense. Alone, alone alone (And you can’t cross the line but you can’t stop trying) over and over and over again. It pulls at you, doesn’t it? Begs for your attention. After reaching the peak of its energy, the beat slows, keys fading and synths washing across the landscape in a lazy flood, falling back down a bit while the singer seduces you, asks you questions softly. With emotion. With intention in his words and the music. You want to answer.
And you can’t cross the line
This happens twice total in the song, the beat returning to what it opened with after the first time the question is asked, and after the singer yells without anger of his inability to deny his own reality. After the second rise and fall, this time with even more intensity behind it, the opening beat and instrumentals return with some extra weight in them before fading out smoothly. When you listen, do you not hear what I hear? See what I see? The yellow sunset, lines drawn between stars shimmering in humid air? Brilliance and nausea and an endless jaundiced sky quivering itself apart with energy. This is what they want.
But you can’t stop trying
I didn’t care that the origin was a mystery. I don’t care. I don’t care about much, anymore. Except for the Line. He is begging me to cross it. When I close my eyes, even to blink, the pattern is there, the symbol to bring our dream to fruition. Our child. I know I can cross the line. I can’t stop trying. He tells me I can’t cross because he knows it will make me more desperate to prove him wrong. I know this and I don’t care and I can’t stop trying and it doesn’t matter. All that matters is the Line. My ears are raw from the earbuds. Duct tape fixed the problem, sometimes if I’m not careful I scratch at it, trying absentmindedly to pull it off. It will not happen. Before I Listened, I had long nails, painted in patterns I liked, statements about myself. They are unnecessary now, though part of me misses them, and the exposed pink flesh stings, but it’s okay. I can’t scratch off the tape anymore.
When tired, you’re no fun
He whispers things above or below or inside the music. It always plays now. I don’t know where my phone is, or if it’s charged or anything silly like that. He won’t let the music die until I do, and I love that. I love him. Time is kind of funny now, not that it matters anyway, except of course when talking about how much of it is left before I cross the Line. There’s not much. The synths pull me down deeper and deeper each time I hear them. The whispers are becoming louder. My body is not entirely my own, I am a vessel. I am a messenger. For him. Anyway, I guess time does have another meaning besides what I said before. It’s very, very important that the sun be in the right position for the Line to be drawn, made physical before it is crossed. When the stars poke faintly through a lemon-colored haze, everything will be perfect.
When idols are boredom, to everyone
Our connection grows stronger. Minutes and seconds and other meaningless terms flow by abstractly. My physical body doesn’t concern me anymore. I don’t eat or sleep or clean myself, I don’t need to when I have Him. He has saved me, I know that now. Nothing bothers me. Nothing can touch me. Except His words and His wisdom, the things that make up my entire being. I said before that the music never stops, and my phone never dies, and you know what? That’s a really great thing, because right now I don’t think my body can move to do those things anymore anyway. I can’t see (He took my eyes, He shows me what I need to see) anything but if I concentrate really really hard, I can touch my hand to my other arm, and it feels skinny. Skeletal. The bones are right there under the skin. I love Him so much.
Is it the last of me or lesson one?
I’ve been waiting for so long, tens or hundreds or thousands or millions or more cycles of the sun have passed, or maybe none at all. But it’s here! It’s finally here. He is finally here. Or, He will be soon, I mean. I still don’t have eyes, but I know it’s going to be soon because He showed me what I needed to do and where to go. I have no idea how long it’s been since I last moved, but when I stood up I hurt a lot. His light flows through me, and his words assure me that the pain is only temporary. Like this reality.
And you can’t cross the line
I awake in a tree-lined field, nude, body lying prone on soft, singed grass. The sky is yellow, thick with humidity, heat, and anticipation. Insects buzz about me, but do not land. If they did, they would burn. I have no earbuds, no phone, the connection is strong and clear enough now, has been for a long time. I stand on little more than bone tied together with sinew, chest hollow, head light, ready for Him. And then, after aching, dizzy moments, His voice floods my body, echoing across cells and tissue and organs, forcing its way out of me.
But you can’t stop trying
He is me and I am Him and we move, coalescing as one, existing independently and together and shattering and reforming as he and I move our hands in the secret patterns I had been taught by the song. The trees on the edge of the clearing sway, hit by invisible breezes of energy rushing to this one spot. The yellow air shimmers and pops, the very fabric of physical space contorting high above as a pinprick of light comes into existence, then another, and another. We are becoming more synced. The music roars and drums crash. We are lifted off the ground, suddenly weightless, buffeted by our power.
And you can’t cross the line
The Line is being drawn. Galaxies shatter overhead, dazzling shards of stardust play across the beautiful golden air as they drift out and down, starting small fires where they land. Miniature suns of red and purple blossom and evaporate around the hovering constellation we bring into being, one spot, one star, one anchor at a time.
But you can’t stop trying
Our tight-bound skin sloughs off in pieces in the heat, and we don’t mind. Muscle chars, burns, breaks. The pain means nothing. Ghostly flames dance around our body, still conjuring the Line. Enough remains together to finish it all. To Cross, once it has been made physical.
And you can’t cross the line
Everything comes together all at once, then slows, stills. The space around us is heavy with electricity and energy that burns out the chemical bonds of this universe’s molecules. They provide more energy in turn.
But you can’t stop trying
The stars we birthed shine brilliantly, brighter and brighter and brighter but never obscuring their own edges. Far below, the meadow is in flames. Waves of force pour out of our body. Organs turn to liquid and spill from gaping wounds.
And you can’t cross the line
We bring our hands, the instrument of creation, together and lift them above our head and to the right. The Line is drawn.
But you can’t stop trying
We bring them down with a sharp crack.
And you can’t cross the line
a knife wound through the cosmos spills light.
But you can’t stop trying
we float slowly towards it
And you can’t cross the line
now as one body one song
But you can’t stop trying
we cross the Line
Alone, alone, alone
everything burns away
Author’s note: This story is based off the song S.O.S. in Bel Air by Phoenix, which was recommended to me by Max. You know who you are ❤
Northern Loss 