4
Listening to Ultraviolence for the First Time
Two Years Later
I couldn’t listen to any Lana Del Rey
That you didn’t get the chance to hear first.
Ultraviolence came out a month after you died.
You used to play her on the freeway
On our way to the beach,
Through the tunnels on the way home,
Bare feet running against the rough, sandy floor,
On our way into LA as the sun ducked beneath the horizon
And threw its maddened colors at the sky,
On our way home,
Watching the city lights dance in the mirror
Like the stars had moved to Earth.
I loved listening to her, unlike most of your music.
After you died, I listened to Born to Die
Over and over again.
It sounded so much like you,
Like you alive,
Burning hard and quick,
Like you living it out before you died young,
Like you building your skyscrapers to fall early.
And now, two years later, in a darkened mood,
I see a beautiful girl in black and white.
She reminds me of you,
And I finally press play,
A few weeks after what would’ve been your 21st.
It sounds like you now,
My haunting ghost,
My cold shadow.
I listen to the whole thing staring out the window,
Watching a town we didn’t grow up in,
Far away from you,
Where it’s still cold in the spring,
Where there are no beaches,
Where I can’t see the lights of the city at night.
It’s singing me here without you. It’s singing you dead.
I should hate it,
But it feels good
To listen to her soft and distant voice,
While I lay on the floor with the moonlight.
I wonder if you would’ve liked it as much.