Work Text:
Dear dearest,
Let me explain. I know I fucked up. I fucked that song up and it was the only one any of us considered keeping from Cricket & Clover. You loved it, so did I. So did thley. But it was your child, the one you couldn’t give up even though it was nothing but trouble. We scrapped that entire album, but you kept that song. That’s why I’m sorry I ruined it. I needed closure. Ruining that song for you was closure after you left.
So, for the love of fuck, please let me explain.
It was a few weeks after we stopped being friends. I told you it was mutual- naïve, I know- but I wasn’t just naïve, I was a liar. You telling me that us keeping in contact was bad for the both us? It shattered me, but me being a bastard, I couldn’t tell you that. You had already said I made you feel guilty. I just didn’t want to hurt you any more, okay? So yeah, I lied and I said it was okay and that you were ruining me too or whatever bullshit. I wouldn’t know- your supposed best friend, not me, the other one you ditched, deleted you from my phone. I can’t look at our messages anymore, and I suppose that’s for the better. If I had, I would’ve warned you about Nearly Witches and you would never have known the pain of having your own creation belittled and poked and prodded until it was some ugly disfigurement of what it once was- beautiful. You would have renounced the entire album just like you renounced the band, him, me. I hope you felt that pain, because for me it has never gone away. For my sake, I hope the pain didn’t last too long. You obviously didn’t care all that much about me anyway, so something I did probably couldn’t have hurt you all too much.
Your songs were nasty. In a good way, of course, but they were nasty. Remember that one line when I was a puppet on tour- this is hard sweaty angry crazy monstrous fucking- that describes your songs, man. They’re gritty, they took so much work to get to, they’re about your anger and your sorrow and how the world’s mistreated you in their own- your own- crazy ass way. P.O. is a horrible example of that, but fuck if fever wasn’t the defined by that one phrase. A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out- something uncomfortable you can’t get rid of. Yeah, your nastiness and your bluntness showed on that album. Not so much on Pretty. Odd. though, because that’s when you were sugarcoating everything and making it all raindrops on roses and girls in white dresses.
My songs barely made the cut. Your criticisms made me who I am today, made me the songwriter I am today, but Folkin’ Around and I Have Friends were my children, just like Nearly Witches. You could hardly let me keep them how they were while you were in the band. Now you’re out, there’s a change in leadership and at least some of what I say goes.
So when I said ‘lets fuck with him and destroy the one song he felt good enough about to keep’ I meant ‘I need to do something to this song that he cared for so much because he couldn’t contain himself when he couldn’t do anything.’
I’m realizing now that you probably really don’t give a shit. I understand I used to not give one either. But being away just made me realize how much I needed you to stay. For you, it had the opposite effect. I miss you, so I tortured the only part of you you left me and made it my own. It’s a love song now if you can’t tell. It’s about you, very obviously so.
But yeah. I fucked over your song just like you fucked over me. And yet, it didn’t help.
So I’m sorry. Really. I am. I’m sorry Ryan.
I love you.
Brendon.