Certain songs are cursed.
Their ghosts linger on, malicious;
Clinging onto the edges of memory and
Scratching at a part of your soul
Scientists have yet to document.
Some haunting melodies will always squeeze
Tears from your eyes, but worse
Are the lilting pop songs; supposedly
Empty husks of riffs and jingles,
Which you've accidentally filled with
Your own heartbreak.

It's just pop music.
Why are you crying?

You don't know, because you're
Not aware of what you're losing.
Chipping away at your core, with every song
That scrapes at the edges of feeling,
You lose a part of yourself.
At first it feels like relief, but it's a curse.
A curse.
If you're lucky, you won't hear that song for years,
And if you're not, you won't hear it for decades.

Nothing hurts more
Than the return of forgotten anguish.

Even the happier memories are cursed;
They taunt you with the remnants of times past.
You'll never hear that song like the first time,
But you'll always feel the traces.
Those hideously familiar opening daggers
Stab at wounds which are suddenly as fresh as ever.
The face of a friend can erode in your mind's eye;
Remembrance escapes the strongest chains,
And fades under even the highest scrutiny.

Lukewarm experiences ebb away;
These songs bring the tide rushing in, but-

But these cursed songs can't bring them back,
Or else you might chance at calling them blessed.
But they do evoke the sweat of a hot summer's day,
Or the scent of an esoteric brand of coffee
You tasted once and instantly abhorred.
They summon up that same old blood rush
From the phantom touches of potential lovers.
Heart swells at the never-weres and the almosts,
Of the secret dreams you confided in music.

These hurt most of all.
The playlist of your youth:
Epitomised by wasted potential;
Metaphors stretched to their limits,

And scrawling love hearts in someone else's diary. 

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Author guidance for This poem

This is how I feel about music; dotted through the first poem are excerpts from some of my own cursed songs.

Inspired by the EP "Certain Songs Are Cursed" by Johnny Foreigner. I highly recommend it.

updated Jul 17 '11 by Miserabilia