fine skinny love

Ah, the joyous occasion of being dumped.

When it happened to me, I was in class when I got that ‘we need to talk’ text. After class, we had a phone call and we broke up. I curled into a ball on my floor and I bawled and howled. It was ugly I’ll tell you that. What was even uglier were the days to come. You can never truly understand a breakup until you’re going through it, and for me I poetically refer to my mourning period as my circles of hell.

for they felt/still feel like it.

The actual circles of hell represent different sins, each with its own degree of wickedness.I interpolated my breakup and this concept and for me ,each circle represents a major feeling I felt (with my personal ranking of the feeling). I also added songs/specific lyrics that spoke to me as I was wallowing. 

welcome to hell

Circle One: Helplessness 

degree of foulness 9/10

Mitski in ‘Francis Forever’ says :

‘I don’t know what to do without you,I don’t know where to put my hands……i don’t think i could stand to be where you don’t see me….i miss you more than anything’

I had to separate with my lover, unwillingly. Of course I was helpless, our birthdays were in the coming weeks and I had all these big and beautiful plans. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know who i would tell i have a tummy ache now. My shoulder to lean on was jerked away from me so i bled in a dark room and asked myself repeatedly, ‘What do I do now?’

Circle Two: Inadequacy

degree of foulness: 9/10

As beautiful as I am, as fun and bubbly as I am(allow me to gloat) I couldn’t help but make the very human mistake of shifting the blame towards myself. My physical ‘flaws’ and insecurities spoke to me as loud as ever .You ask, ‘kwani nakaa aje?’ (translation :how do i look?) 

‘No face’ by Haley Heynderickx highlights this perfectly. She sings:

‘Face me entirely, tell me what’s wrong, is it the bridge of my nose or the back of my skin..is it the pole of my hips that you couldn’t let in?….is it the way that I move that you couldn’t hold in?…’

Logically, you know that the problem isn’t how you look but you nit and you pick. Contemplating,all i could afford to think about was, Why couldn’t they love the entirety of me?

Circle three: Anger

degree of foulness: 9.5/10

Man oh man. 

you seethe. you’re angry at them for giving up on you, for not choosing you, when you know you could have never done this to them.no, not in this universe. you literally have fumes coming out of your nose and ears when you see they have a joint Pinterest board with the girl they told you not to worry about. your wrath could burn through leather.

All i did was listen to Stevie Nicks’ verse on ‘Silver Springs’ more times than i’d like to admit and belted out the lyrics in female rage, secretly hoping they were actually a hex.The lyrics go like this:

‘Time casts a spell on you but you wont forget me, I know I could have loved but you would not let me…

I’ll follow you down till the sound of my voice will haunt you, you’ll never get away from the sound of a woman that loves you’

I loved my partner deeply, and my grief presenting as anger was only but a testament of my love. Why would he do this to us?

Circle four : Love

degree of foulness: 10/10

You secretly still love your person and you hate to admit it.A little bit of them lingers and you absolutely batter yourself for it.

That one Harry Styles lyric in Fine Line that says ‘You’ve got my devotion, but man i can hate you sometimes’

Or when Hozier in Unknown/Nth sings ‘Do you know i could break beneath the weight of the goodness, love I still carry for you’

umm, me fr.

I tried dating again but…but other boys are painfully boring but he was a burning house i wanted to live in. His hugs were tighter, his kisses were sweeter. I mean, nobody has ever slow danced with me to Dijon before. Nobody has ever dipped me down and picked me up and spun me round and round again. Nobody has ever loved me in the colours he loved me in. Nobody has ever been that close to me both physically and emotionally. Nobody has ever let the light in as he did. I still really really love you, yes I do.

Circle five: Acceptance 

Degree of foulness: 4/10

the bittersweet in and outs of fully accepting that maybe, it just wasn’t meant to be. the ebbs and flows of healing all lead to this point. all you can do is accept this 💯. 

Harry Styles (again) repeatedly sings the lines ‘We’ll be alright, we’ll be fine line’ in Fine line. I had to tell myself that. Over and over again. I’ll be okay, I’ll be okay. I’ll be okay.

To reinforce my acceptance, I also listen to I know the End by Phoebe Bridgers and specifically when she says, ‘But you had to go , I know ,I know , I know’

One day you wake up and you let out a deep deep sigh, of content .You make breakfast, you make your bed, and you realize they weren’t your first thought of the day. how freeing.

And so I ask myself ‘You thought you couldn’t do this huh?’