Summertime Sadness

"Oh, my God, I feel it in the air

Telephone wires above are sizzling like a snare

Honey I'm on fire, I feel it everywhere

Nothing scares me anymore

Kiss me hard before you go
Summertime sadness
I just wanted you to know..."

-- "Summertime Sadness" by Lana del Rey

... that I knew it would end even before the leaves turned to red and gold, before the skies here would be marked with the calls of migratory geese seeking the warmth of paradise.

When I was sixteen and discovered my glorious rocker idol songstress for the first time, there was one thing I didn't understand. When Ren left Nana for Tokyo, why did they let it die without a single word of communication for two years? If their love had been an addiction, one that led her to tattoo his namesake flower on her arm and lock a padlock chain around his neck, why would they quit each other cold turkey? Why did they let it die without a fight?

The truth is that it's easier this way. You will never know how many times I would revise a stupid Facebook message before I would send it to you. You will never know how I would purposely reply to your messages right before I'd go to sleep so that for eight hours I wouldn't have to agonize over your impending response. But you were leaving for Tokyo anyways, decided long before we ever met. I couldn't bear this constant barrage of wavering uncertainty, of not knowing if you had been so friendly to me because it was in your nature or because you felt even a fraction of what I felt for you. And even if I forced the answer out of you, what could I do with it when we were separated by space and time?

That last message I sent to you, I wavered. I could have added one more line. A question. A provoking comment. Anything to continue feeding the fire.

But I didn't. And when you wrote back that casual one-line response, I knew then that I would let the fire die on its own. Ren and Nana were fortuitous to meet again two years after their separation, but I have no delusions that the same will happen to you and me.