Lyrical Lingu: The Caliginous Night

The following lines are not my own, however, I have pulled together song lyrics and have juxtaposed them into my own, free-flowing thought process … my own interpretative verse. It is, in its entirety, lyrics borrowed from songs that have moved me deeply in relation to my own pain and internal struggles.

Maybe you, too, have had to deal with intense hurt or pain, either from your own poor choices or at another’s hand. Maybe you, like me, have have had to find ways to overcome through exercise, self expression, music, books, your work — but before overcoming, you have leaned into a sort-of comradery with others who have also carried such an intense burden — that whole, “misery loves company” thing.

This is my Lyrical Lingu … my language of lyrics that helps me understand that I am not alone. That others feel or have felt the same intensity as I and have gone as far as to put their pain to music. This is part of my “before overcoming” story, and it’s part of the artists’ stories as well. Maybe it’s YOUR “before overcoming” story too. It’s ok to express it. It’s ok for the darkness to take hold for a little while … to feel the intensity down to your bones. This entry sounds bleak, hopeless even, HOWEVER — it’s only part of the story of ultimate redemption. So, don’t sit in the dark for too long here, because the “GET BACK UP” story comes next.

The only words that are my own have been inserted within parenthesis […]. Artists and their songs are listed at the end. To all my fitness class participants – “You’re welcome”! These are the songs that drove ME and therefore drove you!
Lyrical Lingu Part I

The Caliginous Night

All my life, been running from a pain in me. A feeling I don’t understand is holding me down. I can’t seem to tame my mind. Slings and arrows are killing me inside. Clipped wings … [I’m] a broken thing. I’ve traded love for indifference and it suits me just fine … every sound … monotone. Every color … monochrome. I’ve become so numb. Apathy grows quietly where rapture use to fly. I’m rusted and weathered. I’m tied up, twisted, barely breathing, buried in the dark. [My] darkest moments…keep [me] in the dark where all of the ghouls come out to play. I’m friends with the monster that’s under my bed. [I] look[ed] for heaven once … but found the devil in me, and it’s hard to dance with the devil on your back! [Mine is] just another soul for sale, covered with skin … it peels but it just won’t heal.

It’s always raining in my head. I run and run as the rains come. Run away, run away like a prodigal, [playing] hide and seek. I am nothing more than a little [girl] inside [who] cries out for redemption yet I always try to hide. When the night falls, you wonder if you shouldn’t find some place to run and hide … escape the pain. But hiding is such a lonely thing to do. [I] cry without weeping, talk without speaking, scream without raising [my] voice under a black belly of cloud in the rain. I’ve got something to say, you know, but nothing comes. Without a thought, without a voice, without a soul. Sometimes I hear my voice [but] it’s been silent all these years.

Do you think there’s a heaven where the screams have gone? Running through hell. Heaven can wait. Years go by and will I choke on my tears till finally there’s nothing left? Years go by and will I still be waiting for somebody else to understand? What’s the use so [I] start retreating. I tear my heart open just to feel [then] I sew myself shut. Life [begins] to fade into the black. I [can] hardly feel me anymore. Can hold my breath only for a little while until reality starts sinking in. Lost under the surface. Caught in the undertow. I’m drowning in the pain, breaking down again. I want to swim away but don’t know how. Sometimes it feels like I’m falling in the ocean. Let the waves knock and take me down. Let the rain of what I feel right now come down. Let the rain come down. Not knowing how to think, I scream aloud … begin to sink.

When the rain comes it seems that everyone has gone away. Sudden rain, coming down. It all comes back to me … waking up, falling down. Is there anybody out there? I’m waiting in the dark. Isn’t anyone trying to find me? There’s nothing but the rain. No footsteps on the ground. Maybe friends will stand around and watch [me] crumble as [I’m] falling to the ground.

I’ve been looking for a lifeline for what seems like a lifetime. Can you help me? I walk a lonely road … the only one that I have ever known. Long road to ruin and my shadow’s the only one who walks beside me. I’m bent. I’m falling apart, barely breathing with a broken heart that’s still beating. Sometimes I wish someone would find me. Wake me up inside. Call my name and save me from the dark. Bid my blood to run … Tear down the walls that I’ve built around myself. Save me from the nothing I’ve become. Is there anybody out there? I cried out with no reply. If I fall along the way, [will anyone] pick me up and dust me off?

In a world so cold it’s hard to keep the faith. It’s a damn, cold night trying to figure out this life. Sometimes you feel like you live too long …. the days drip slowly on the page. Nothing’s going right and everything’s a mess. I left myself behind somewhere along the way hoping to come back around to find myself some day. I waited for you, today. But you didn’t show. I’m searching for a face. Is there anyone here I know? [Ahhhh perhaps] … my shadow’s the only one that walks beside me. [I] bleed myself out and no one cares. Now again I’ve found myself so far down away from the sun that shines into the darkest place. Seems I found the road to nowhere and I’m trying to escape. Can anyone see me down here? For now I’ll walk the night alone like a [girl] against the world.

I’m unashamed. I’m gonna show my scar. It’s just the power of a breaking heart. How good am I hiding it? I won’t explain or say I’m sorry. I do not have to justify the way I live my life. Remember what abuse did. Somewhere there’s a stolen halo. There’s a scream we all try to hide. Someone ran away with innocence. A memory [I] can’t get out of [my] head. Can the child within my heart rise above? I remember all of the things I thought I wanted to be. So desperate to find my way out of my world and finally breathe. I’m not afraid of anything. I just need to know that I can breathe. But I’m only a crack in this castle of glass. Hardly anything there for you to see. [Yet] somehow I’m still here to explain that the darkest hour never comes in the night [and that] this quick sand’s got no sense of humor. I wrote the book on pain so [I’ll]change the rhyme and forget the reason and give a cheer for all the broken … walking with the wounded. Because it’s who we are.

• Linkin Park: Castle of Glass
• James Morrison: “I Won’t Let You Go”
• Coldplay: “Fix You”
• Big and Rich: “Holy Water”
• Adele: “Remedy”
• Avril Lavigne: “I’m With You” “How Does it Feel”
• Blue October: “Light You UP”, “Into the Ocean”, “Fear”, “The Worry List”
• Lifehouse: “Take Me Away”, “Broken”
• Barlow Girl: “Never Alone”
• Papa Roach: “Lifeline”, “Scars”
• Creed: “Higher”, “Weathered”, “One Last Breath”,
• Candlebox: “Far Behind”
• Default: “It Only Hurts” “Count on Me”
• Evanescence: “Bring Me To Life”
• Foo Fighters: “Long Road to Ruin”, “Come Alive”
• Linkin Park: “Numb”, “Bleed it Out”
• Green Day: “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”
• Jimmy Buffet: “Pacing the Cage”
• Matchbox 20: “Bent”
• Eminem: “Beautiful Pain”, “Monster”
• My Chemical Romance: “Welcome to the Black Parade”
• Stain’d: “Lost along the Way”, “Epiphany”
• Scott Stapp: “Let Me Go”, “Broken”, “Justify”
• 3 Door Down: “Let Me Be Myself”, “Away from the Sun”
• U2: “Running to Stand Still”
• Tori Amos: “Silent All These Years”
• Third Eye Blind: “Wounded”
• Third Day: “When the Rain Comes”
• Survivor: “Man Against the World”
• Imogen Heap: “Hide and Seek”
• Florence and the Machine: “Shake It Out”
• One Republic: “Prodigal”
• Sister Hazel: “Life Got In The Way”
• Sia: “Bird Set Free”
• Stevie Nicks: “Landslide”
• Switchfoot: “The Shadow Proves the Sunshine”