There’s only so much that can be said about love, and sometimes nothing at all. I ask a friend about love who has never seen it and has been rejected of it several times — his hunger growing strong with each beat of his hurting heart — and he says its the most beautiful thing in the world eventhough it has only caused pain to him. I ask a friend who’s been in love for 7 years, each day a new blessing and nothing more, she, too, tells me its the most beautiful feeling in the world.
And so the healing and the hurting are both love, perhaps. Perhaps, I have been in love all my life, because I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t hurting for someone, or healing for someone.
I am in love with Frank Ocean for many reasons but none as precious as the admiration for his understanding of heartbreak. Sometimes you are maybe old, but not as old as the people around you insist you are. Sometimes you have seen some things, but not nearly enough to know that you’ve seen enough. This year was the year I got interested in getting a tattoo. Perhaps what I’m saying is that this year was the year I got interested in permanence. Last year ended with me holed up inside a room in a frozen ghost town, writing what would become a book that reminded people of what they have lost, even if briefly.
When I say permanence, I mean commitment. I mean whatever happens, I’ll be here. Even if the world decides to leave, or if you decide to leave, just give me a call. And that’s the perfect way to describe frank ocean.
His music isn’t something that you’d listen to when you’re having a great day, even though it’s there, and you can. But you listen to it when no one’s around, when the heart needs you to explain why you caused pain to it. For me, that explanation is white ferrari.
This slow-burning, minimal ballad “white ferrari” finds Frank Ocean using the image of a ride in a white Ferrari as a metaphor for a fast and pure relationship with a lover. The album was inspired by the Beatles — the band of lovers that promised love to always remember it — Frank talks about his relationship and what he received in return of the love he abundantly poured into the mouth of those he loved.
And we know how that feels, and by we I mean those who have been found soaked in the pouring of tears and rhythm; those who fail to compare any other song with all that blond has to offer.
The thing about Ocean fans is that they don’t care if ocean doesn’t release a song in decades, they will return with a yearning whenever he decides to bless them with a rhythm.
And isn’t that how lovers are, not questioning the love they receive, but taking it as a blessing. Finding warmth wherever they are granted. Or is it just me. Writing an entire life with someone I’ve only met once and will probably never meet again.
(hey, this is the part where you play the song and swallow the story I’m about to tell.)
I’ve been praying a lot. Five times a day actually, sometimes I miss out on a prayer but I cover up by praying at night. I’ve stopped chasing love. I’ve stopped thinking of someone who isn’t thinking of me. You know you were meant to be a writer, when you’re up at night thinking of someone who you met briefly, for a minute or an hour, and never saw again, but you write about her, and can’t stop writing about her, knowing that you will never have her in your arms. But that’s the kick, that’s what gets your blood rushing, when there’s no possibility for you to end up in the place you want to be. That’s what a muse is, essentially. It’s not a compliment, we writers just throw around — we mean it. A muse is someone that doesn’t just inspire art, but for whom the artist is willing to tear parts of himself to draw an image of her. That’s what writers do. That’s how this works.
You know, but I’ve stopped, or I think I have. I realized how this is self harm. A few days ago, a friend asked me if I ever prayed for someone’s love, and I told her I did. I said that I cried into the feet of God for someone and I was denied of it. Now I understand why. She said she did too, she told me that she would cry in the night when everyone was asleep, she would beg God to make this one person love her, but he didn’t, she understands why aswell. “I was so stupid,” she says. “I’m glad that I didn’t get it, and thinking back it just serves as evidence how stupid the heart can be sometimes.” I agree. Sometimes, the best is not what we need. We need comfort, we need something that isn’t a challenge. I’m trying to unlearn the parts of myself that sustain a never ending void within me.
And it’s not like I’ve forgotten her completely, even though it’s been a while since I’ve obsessed over her. I do still remember her. I do still think of her and scroll through her instagram sometimes to check up on her. Even though I don’t want to. And I look at this not as a defeat on my part, but perhaps a promise my heart made, that it has to keep. Like Frank Ocean says in the song:
I care for you still and I will, forever.
That was my part of the deal.
And so yes. Yes, I have imagined you in every love poem I have clawed on paper, I have imagined you at night so often that the empty space in my bed doesn’t feel empty but a space that is filled in my dream. And yes, I have seen God, and I have asked him of you over and over again, and I’m still asking, and perhaps in another life, I will get you, or I’ll vanish into the forgotten without you, either way, I’m glad that I can chew your name for as long as I want. I’m glad that we had that moment, one that I will live by for the rest of my life.
(here are the lyrics of the last part of the song, that I feel like is some of the best poetry I’ve read. So I’ll end it here. And leave you to it. I hope you found calm in this piece.)
I’m sure we’re taller in another dimension
You say we’re small and not worth the mention
You’re tired of movin’, your body’s achin’
We could vacay, there’s places to go
Clearly this isn’t all that there is
Can’t take what’s been given
But we’re so okay here, we’re doing finePrimal and naked
You dream of walls that hold us imprisoned
It’s just a skull, least that’s what they call it
And we’re free to roam
