"I want you to occur to me daily..."

Friday seems to be music day, so here's some more of what I'm listening to over here.

I stumbled across "Apology" by Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long in a CBC Radio 3 Artist Series Podcast, hosted by Dan Mangan. I listened as I mindlessly repaired flash cards today in the junior high school office, waiting for my 15 minutes of work as a human tape recorder for each grade's English listening test after lunch.

The lyrics of the song (can they be called lyrics? the poetry of the song?) struck me almost immediately, and before it'd finished playing on the podcast, I'd already bought the song on iTunes.

It might be one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.

Give it a listen, if you're interested...but don't do it while you're doing anything else. Give the words the consideration they deserve. I've reproduced them below in case they move you as much as they moved me. There are a lot of them, though.

Oh, and Shane is--of course--Canadian, and Dan made some mention of him having performed at some point during the Olympics, if you remember that kind of stuff.

i’m sorry, i’m sorry that i keep saying that i’m sorry. i know it’s strange, strange in a george w bush hasn’t been assassinated yet kinda way. but i say i’m sorry for stupid shit and trivial things and she sings the sweet logic that apologies should grow like trees, only able to bear fruit if it’s root is planted in the soil of genuine sincerity. but i somehow manage to parrot each apology by speaking it before i react. and the fact is that i’m not really sorry that i completely dig degrassi, because it was yick and arthur who got me through wet dreams and puberty. lady, i don’t expect you to understand the reference but i’ve been into this shit ever since the casting director said fuck physicality, give me some reality. gimme kids who can’t act and are ugly: they’ll teach the world about beauty, lady—i can relate to this.

because before i met you i used to want to lock myself into a vault just to feel precious. but now with every kiss hello and good bye—i feel a self worth no banker can tally. and, my heart is a protest that i let rally against my ribs ‘cause i want to build my bones into cribs and lay my reluctance to rest. test what it would be like to live frenetically, to hold you unapologetically

to plant a giving tree on my front lawn, so that when you’re gone it can give you back to me. and i’m sorry that when you sleep next to me you’re forced to listen to the symphony of the unplugged nostril. and, i’m sorry that one time, for some reason, i called you ma’am. that’s fucked up. fucked up in a ‘i just bought a pair of speedos so i can go swimming with you’ kind of way. and crazier than that is the fact that i’ll play at being brave. because doubt is about as useful as a fire escape when you’re trying to dodge a tidal wave, when you got no time to save anybody yourself—you better believe that you’re worth it.

and you are worth the time it takes to take the time to get to know you. we’ve managed to muddle through the awkward stages of i like you and you like me, and when we both said ‘yes’ life became a multiple choice test, not knowing anything we became each other’s best guess. and, holding your hand is less like exploration and more like discovery. lady, i don’t have to study you to be sure. you’re the choice i made before i knew what the other choices were

and, like the best idea i’ll ever have, i want you to occur to me daily. and, i’m sorry, but i want to kiss you every time you have something incredible to say. but you’re beautiful, beautiful in a you kinda way. you’re like the long lost vinyl of louis armstrong, and i wanna play you until it, /until it/ skips. i wanna tell you a secret and i want you to listen with your lips. i want my hands on your hips like they were their final resting place. then, put that funeral under paper so that you can trace their lifetime back to the fact that i’m more inclined to find a space in your heart to haunt for as long as you want me to, lady, i’ll rattle chains up and down the halls of you.

and, this isn’t the greatest romance the world has ever seen. let’s face it: we’ve been making out to songs about break-up and heart ache. but i’ve come to realize romance should be less like a flower and more like an earthquake. and i’m not saying that i wanna shake cities to the ground, i’m not saying that i want the ruble that remains to be come a lost and found where we find the kind of tolerance it takes to rebuild in the face of tragedy, because I’m tired of living in a world that says people only come together when faced with catastrophe.

i want you
to want me
to be the me you see when im free to be the me that got me next to you,
and as for romance? well i want that too.

i wanna fall asleep next to you 100 times a night so i can no you 100 times better before we hit the daylight. and in spite of all of this i also want amnesia, so i can relive each kiss with a perfect newness that leaves me smashed in the arms of rapture. i want the sky to fracture under the impossible weight of an apology, because i’m sorry. i’m sorry that i want so much. i’m sorry that i’ve been using i’m sorry as a crutch to lean on for so long, but if you sing me that song of sweet logic again, then i promise to make the effort to stand on my own.

theres a reason that our hearts are more like a muscle and less like a bone. i’ve known so many people who’ve grown up flexing in front of the mirrors as if falling for their own reflection would be adequate—and that’s bullshit. because we only get from now until the time we go, and if they’ve only got time to love themselves, then no one’s going to be around to hear the sound of their heartbeat echo. so, lady, don’t expect an apology when i tell you i’m only held together by a heart that pumps glue, it’s the strongest muscle in my body… and i’m flexing it for you.

- Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long

Oh, and this, too: