You can purchase the incredibly beautiful blue vinyl or download the album from her Bandcamp page.
The dog's confused
She just paces around all day
She's sniffing at your empty room
I'm trying to believe
When I sleep it's really you
Visiting my dreams
Like they say that angels do
I came here for the long haul
Now I leave here as an empty fucking hole
Oh do you believe in Heaven
Like the way you believed in me?
Oh it could be such heaven
If you believe it was real
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Playing with Mitski and Jay Som at the Brighton Music Hall on June 22nd. Fittingly, on what would've been Dad's 63rd birthday.
Michelle Zauner's lyrics reminds me of how the first few months I would pace around the house restlessly, almost looking for him. Tried to move on too hard too early, because the pain was unbearable when I saw him breathe his last breath. In denial of his absence and hoping to find him just around the corner in the dark house, at the usual spots. Despite having couches, he preferred to sit and study on the floor, under the warmth of our kotatsu. It was the last place Mom saw him before it all happened. His last words being, "Oyasumi, beautiful Okaasan" (Good night, beautiful Mom). I wasn't there to kiss him good night. The last goodbye I said was a hurried one as I left their car during a red light. A quick peck on both parents' cheeks and I ran out the car, from traffic and towards South Station.
He always sat at this seat at the table where I now sit, closest to the computer where he watched Japanese folk-singing and conspiracy theory videos. Even though I was 26, he would still call me down to breakfast every morning, a Japanese breakfast. I keep expecting to hear the familiar shuffling of his feet, the gentle thuds as he struggled to climb up the stairs to my room.
"Shino-chan, ohayo~ Shita de issho gohan tabeyo"
(Good morning, dear Shino~ Let's eat breakfast together downstairs)
To wake up to that gesture of love every morning, and then, silence... Though I know he won't come back, the hope lingers and every morning I wake there, I am greeted with disappointment and melancholy. Part of the reasons why I prefer to drive the extra hour commute and not stay at my family's.
I'm the dog, and I'm Michelle too.
Exactly 40 days after his passing, I dreamed he came back, albeit brief. On the hospital bed, the colors of his skin returned, the smell of death gone. I looked on in shock as I watched his limbs twitch and move to prop himself up. He opened his eyes, light brown, and looked at me. For a fleeting moment, I thought he was alive, and things would be back to normal. He didn't speak, but he told me with his look that everything was okay. There was no sadness in his gaze, with only what I could describe as pure love, and his smile. He had to go, and I got to say goodbye, hugging him for the final time before he laid back down, closing his eyes. The colors of the room left and I was alone again in the gray room with a corpse.
I don't believe in Heaven, but I want to believe it was really him.
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