Grave: A Punky Original Song On Letting Go of a Painful Breakup

Lyrics: Grave

Verse 1

I dug your grave yesterday

Dirt on my hands, shaking, I had a few

I watch your soul drift out to space

My mind wonders to places I don’t want it to

Pre-Chorus

And isn’t it strange

That I saw stars with every single touch?

And isn’t it strange

That the butterflies were a part of who I was?

Isn’t it strange

That I was willing to sacrifice it all

But apparently you blame me

Chorus

So I surrender all the pain

You take your gold, I’ll keep the chain

And every day your promise fades away

I won’t be mourning at your grave

Verse 2

I know someday it's gonna change

The way I feel ‘bout what I'm ‘sposed to do

Someday I may learn how to pray

That the good Lord go ahead and take care of you

Pre-Chorus

Isn’t it strange

That I saw stars with every single touch?

And isn’t it strange

That the butterflies were a part of who I was?

Isn’t it strange

That I was willing to sacrifice it all

But apparently you blame me

Chorus

So I surrender all the pain

You take your gold, I’ll keep the chain

And every day your promise fades away

I won’t be mourning at your grave

Bridge

December 2nd

Another reason for my seasonal depression

December 2nd

Another reason for my seasonal–

Chorus

I surrender all the pain

You take your gold, I’ll keep the chain

And every day your promise fades away

I won’t be mourning at your grave

Outtro:

“Gold on your fingertips / fingertips against my cheek,” Billie Eilish famously sings in hostage.

Maybe he thinks I forgot about that.

Or that the impossible spiritual experience,

with golden glitter on his hands,

somehow slipped from my memory.

It would’ve been easy to forget,

if not for the song we added to Spotify playlists

about how we were going to make it in the end.

The breakup was a wake-up call—

as I assume they tend to be, because Maroon 5 sang about it.

I finally got on my Trazodone and wrote thirteen songs, Numb Little Bug style.

But the weight, the shame, the self-hatred,

the fear—

those wolves still chased me, because as Taylor Swift would say, I wasn't out of the woods.

Grave was my favourite piece—

ironically, the least vulnerable and the angriest—

because the desperation in the sound is because it’s so determined to make it through.

I was sick of feeling like I still belonged to him.

Like I couldn’t even think about someone else

without metaphysically harming him somehow.

And deep down, I knew

he wasn’t the one experiencing dreams,

the Bella Swan–esque hallucinations

of The One Who Left Her.

So I wrote one last song.

A song for the funeral.

To put it all in the ground,

once and for all.

To release whatever this pathetic experience

still needed me to release.

He can keep all the gold he wants.

He can live the happy life

he so desperately believed he had to create

without me.

And me?

I’ll make art.

Because I know how to turn nightmares into daydreams.

Three years ago today,

I screamed my heart out,

dyed my hair,

cut it short,

and slammed my broken heart

into the piano

to make this.

December 2nd became my turning point—

the moment I let go

of what was holding me back

and opened the door

to whatever was waiting.

I’m still allowed to cry over the betrayal.

Still allowed to grieve the broken promises.

To let angry guitar riffs hold my hand.

But what I’ve never done since—

and will never do again—

is forget my worth.

Just when I was finally blossoming into myself,

he declared that I was unwanted,

embarrassing.

And for too long,

I believed him.

But the truth is—

I was just getting started.