I hate it here so I will go to lunar valleys in my mind

t.s. + the motif of space

THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT 📜 And so I enter into evidence my tarnished coat of arms. My muses, acquired like bruises. My talismans and charms. The tick, tick, tick of love bombs. My veins of pitch black ink. All’s fair in love and poetry.

'Cause there were pages turned with the bridges burned. Everything you lose is a step you take. So make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it. You've got no reason to be afraid.

the prophecy -> cassandra -> peter is possibly one of my fave three track runs in taylor’s discography, if not the fave. they’re not the only three songs that do this on ttpd but the way all three of them take you on a time travel trip across the verses, the use of fantastical or mythological imagery in all of them, all three being about three different subjects/concepts but ultimately coming back to the theme of growing up lonely, which obviously reappears over and over on ttpd but it’s just so prominent here.

the prophecy starts with losing one relationship and ends with losing a different relationship, and in the bridge you see the narrator going crazy because she’s so afraid of being alone any longer. every time she pleads with the fates is a different time - first when her first lightning in a bottle disappeared, second when she thought she had it again and was dreaming of him, and third when she loses the lightning in a bottle again. in cassandra, she uses her house as a metaphor for her life and experiences (you could loosely map the verses to either 1989-reputation-lover era if you read it as about snakegate, or lover-folkmore-midnights era if you read it as about her masters) and in the bridge, she’s not going crazy but everyone else thinks she’s going crazy because she stands alone against this family, this pure greed, this christian chorus line. in peter, she takes you through three stages of waiting for someone who promised they wouldn’t leave her forever, but they did. in the first verse she doesn’t want to come down, in the second she no longer wants to hang around, and in the bridge she admits that she did wait but she truly can’t do it any longer, leaving her alone once again.

at the end of each song she stands alone, despite all the superstitious, magical things she’s tried to put her faith in, fighting a desperate battle against fate - she’s doomed to no soulmates, she’s doomed to have no one believe her, and she’s doomed to wait around for peter. which takes us straight into the bolter, where the narrator takes charge of her fate and leaves first, robin where she reflects on youth as sweetness, and the manuscript where she reflects on youth as agony.

how much sad did you think i had? did you think i had in me?

my empty halls to echo with grand self-mythology: ttpd parallels + my boy only breaks his favorite toys

loosely speaking the first half of the album (standard edition) covers a mindset where life is a whirlwind and felt in the extremes: rabid happiness and frenzied highs, deep and all consuming anger. Overcompensating for being sad by acting like it's your birthday. You type only in all caps. This all goes in line with experiencing moods that land on the far edges of the spectrum. In the second half, those 15 songs are when you're past that stage, things are evening out, and landing closer to the middle ... and its just more reflective sadness and mourning, a more pondering state of being, quietly wondering what if's and what now's, and also being happy in a content way that is steady and measured. You're no longer screaming in all caps.

my empty halls to echo with grand self-mythology: ttpd parallels + the tortured poets department

The Tortured Poets Department

An anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time - one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure. This period of the author’s life is now over, the chapter closed and boarded up. There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed. And upon further reflection, a good number of them turned out to be self-inflicted. This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it. And then all that’s left behind is the tortured poetry.

my empty halls to echo with grand self-mythology: ttpd parallels + fortnight

Oh, he looks so cute wrapped 'round my finger My twisted humor make him laugh so often My honeybee, come and get this pollen

okay i ruined your life but did you not have fun? exactly relax

TAYLOR SWIFT — 'Fortnight' (feat. Post Malone)

SABRINA CARPENTER Coachella weekend two + looks

THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT