I heard that you like the bad girl, honey.
Is that true?
–Lana Del Rey
~
You have often accused her of glorifying depression, and, therefore, mental illness, simply because she has described to you the sorrows that afflict her reality. Her intention was never to offend, but to express. For poetry has become the only medium through which she is able to alleviate her emotional turmoils.
I credit your judgments to your own ignorance; I believe you to be incapable of understanding the pain she has experienced. For as long as she can remember, she has been sad. And, despite her best efforts to escape the darkness, its ruthless, seductive nature always seems to lure her away from her pursuit of peace. Happiness, to her, is a distant and foreign entity because sadness is all she has ever known, and, as a result, it is where she is the most comfortable.
The poem you are about to read conveys an important truth: sadness is an addiction. If you are able to forgive other conventional addictions, such as those that pertain to alcoholism and drug abuse, then sadness should be no exception. For sadness is also capable of intoxicating and impairing. Thus, you mustn’t condemn a woman for the despondency she wears, somehow mistaking it for glorification.
And, quite frankly, if you find “glamour” rooted within her melancholia, then I am afraid you are the one who has a problem, your misinterpretations alluding to a lack of sympathy and consideration on your own part. For this reason, you have no right to patronize her. You have no right to diminish her for the emotions she has uttered and for the words she has written–for the burdens that have crafted her into the tragedy that she is.
~
You think the night
is beautiful,
with her endless
cascade of stars and
the way she wears the clouds
so seductively–
billowing wisps of froth
that adhere to her frame
like a silk negligee,
their mere existence
dependent solely upon
the curves of her body.
She’s the girl next door;
the one who keeps you up at night,
the woman you want to undress.
You admire her
for her quiet,
for her stillness.
You worship her,
for she is the keeper
of both dreams and wishes
But I am afraid
you have mistaken her mournings
for loveliness.
What you thought were stars
are really tears,
molten pearls of silver
whose painful scorches
have blemished the
velveteen shadows
of the night.
And the clouds are not truly clouds
but ringlets of cigarette smoke
that arise from her
chapped, wine-stained lips,
imposing onto the air a heavy smog that
sputters throughout the blackness.
Sometimes,
she will sing,
her symphonies chaperoned by
the melancholy of Ursa Minor.
I heard that you like
the bad girls, honey.
Is that true?
The vibrato of her voice
ricochets off the
planes of the universe.
A fine performance!
they cheer
(for someone who is
so unfathomably sad).
The Gods
say she is a warped record,
a label that is dictated,
not by her pitch,
but by her broken heart.
And you will listen
to her anyway;
for she will put you
to sleep with her lullabies
whose sorrow you have
failed to acknowledge–
a sorrow you have mistaken
for beauty.
But, then, perhaps you
had known
of her sorrow all along.
Perhaps that was what
had captivated
you in the first place.
After all,
dark minds think alike.
~
Been tryin’ hard not to get into trouble,
But I, I’ve got a war in my mind.
–Lana Del Rey
Lana Del Rey Summertime Sadness gif. (2015). [image] Available at: https://weheartit.com/entry/106349020 [Accessed 25 Feb. 2018].
