I'm not gonna match you cause I'll lose my voice completely

Ampersand (video) ~ Amanda Palmer

"And I may be romantic,
and I may risk my life for it,
but I ain't gonna die for you,
you know I ain't no Juliet.
And I'm not gonna watch you wanna burn yourself out baby,
no I'm not gonna stop you,
cause I'm not the one that's crazy."

There is so much I want to write about my three days at the Coachella festival, but I need to sift through the memories, and the short notes I jotted down along the way. I need to re-visit some of the music, and the emotions that still cling on my skin, and on my insides. And some of the feelings I want to keep to myself because I feel so changed right now, and so healed, yet some of that feels so deeply personal that I fear bleeding all of it out in words - as I'm known to do - may take too much from it, and I really need the healing, I do.

This song, though, is playing over and over again in my memory. It is as if there is a loop unspooling, recoiling, rewinding itself up, and then playing again. I know that I stood there in that tent, close to the stage, watching her play this on the piano, and sing in what seemed like was her heart out. She seemed to be bleeding in the way that I do in words that I type, or scratch out in composition books, and I was following along with ever turn of phrase, with every lyric, and I stood there with tears running down my face, feeling so much.

I am tired of the hurting that comes from my own issues, my own pain, and my own broken hearted pieces. But, even more, I am tired of being hurt from other people's pain and broken hearted pieces. My instincts push me to try to heal the other, to understand, to rip myself open if it means they will find something soothing in anything I have to give, even when what they need, or what they have to say, slays me and slashes at me in ways that are near impossible to recover from. So, why do I do it? Why do I let my voice and wants and needs be lost to someone else's voice and wants and needs? Why do I chalk it all up to love, as if that makes all the pain okay?

I don't want to do it anymore. I don't want to lose myself completely. I don't want it anymore, not like this. I want to keep healing, and for my heart and words to matter.