The Fanatic // Poem

You clearly don’t remember, but

I recall lying on the carpet of my old room

Looking at the pictures of you like plastered paper

And I saw myself smiling back from your eyes.

I would open magazines and search every page

For your red lips and winged eyes

Then scream in excitement when I found you

Almost as if I had found myself between

 the pages of Shout Magazine.

I gave up my Christmases for you. I didn’t

Listen to ‘Jingle Bells’ but to you on repeat

On repeat, and heard you promise me

You’d always be there in my ears.

I bought my first guitar at twelve, just like you

It was beautiful – bigger than me and midnight blue

The first song I played was painful and poor

But to me it was amazing because it sounded like yours

Nothing was more painful than your betrayal.

When you saw your sales stoop slightly

I could hear your fear in the electronics

Which replaced the familiar Pennsylvanian phonics

I once loved so much.

You will never understand how it hurts

Because you’re no longer writing for me

I can no longer hear my story in your lyrics

You’re writing for the cool kids, like a 12-year-old girl

Trying to fit in like thatch in tiling.

It doesn’t make sense to me any more when I hear

The words you really want to say in the voice break

On stage, make it through, just one more page…

Bathing in the screams of those who don’t even know who you are.

Not like I do.

I was there when you were fragile, when you wrote for me

When you wrote for her and you wrote for you,

Not when you wrote because your label wants you to.

Not when you only send out flowers when you have a new release

On the way to number 1.

Were you using me like you’re using that girl you gave

Thousands of dollars to for her tuition just for the

Publicity, not for her like you’re selfless, because you’re selfish.

Does he know he’s just a ken doll in your rise to something?

Does he know you’re a spider, leeching every penny out

Of his existence, just like you did to me?

Do you even realise that I’m here? I’m one of millions

To you, there was a time when you would go into broad daylight

Just to meet me, you thought there was nothing brighter

Than the ones who dedicated their Christmases to you

Who cried over you. Now you expect it, you treat us like

We are the charms on your bracelets, or the necklace

I once wanted because you wore it that time.

I don’t even know your message anymore!

It used to be 13 ways you can love yourself

That any dreams are achievable. But you never

Told me that your daddy paid to get you where you are.

You are proof that hard work and talent means nothing.

I wonder why I wasted words on why you are more than tales

Of woe because you weren’t worth any of it. You weren’t worth me.

You called yourself a feminist icon. You said you were there

For the girls that needed you, not just the ones who want to look like you

You swore to me that I was worth more than the guy I was dating-

Maybe that’s how you became who you are now, by believing yourself

To be above everyone else. Above me. Above him. Above her.

My mother calls me cynical. But I call it common sense

She knows I’ve watched your patterns for years, I know

That when a new guy is on the scene you’re working on

something immense.

I know that when you send goody bags to fans your plan

Is to get them to buy, and their friends to buy, their girlfriend

And boyfriend and his friends to buy. When did you become

This emotionless machine, just doing it for the money?

To get another million dollars into your account of

One billion views on YouTube, which is just me cursing

Your name over and over again when you didn’t play

The songs I loved at your concert in London. Just the

Ones which reached number one but they don’t mean much

At all the ones who really love your music. They’re just echoes

Of the misery of those who don’t.

What hurt more than any of this

Was trying to catch your eye,

It meaning everything to me, then

Realising

That to you

I meant nothing at all.