Maybe This Thing Was A Masterpiece

Until you tore it all up

[taylorswift]

My favorite part about writing is that first spark of an idea. It can happen at any time, for any reason. The idea for the Opalite music video crash landed into my imagination when I was doing promo for The Life of a Showgirl. I was a guest on one of my favorite shows, The Graham Norton Show. For those of you who aren’t familiar, it’s a UK late night show where Graham Norton (the insanely charismatic and lovable host) invites a random group of actors, entertainers, musicians, etc to be on his show and we all sit there and chat like it’s a dinner party. They even serve wine. Anyway. I remember thinking I got ridiculously lucky with the group I was paired with. Cillian Murphy, Domhnall Gleeson, Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Lewis Capaldi. All people whose work I’ve admired from afar. When we were all talking during the broadcast, Domhnall made a light hearted joke about wanting to be in one of my music videos. He’s Irish! He was joking! Except that in that moment during the interview, I was instantly struck with an *idea*. And so a week later he received an email script I’d written for the Opalite video, where he was playing the starring role. I had this thought that it would be wild if all of our fellow guests on the Graham Norton show that night, including Graham himself, could be a part of it too. Like a school group project but for adults and it isn’t mandatory. To my delight, everyone from the show made the effort to time travel back to the 90’s with us and help with this video. You might even recognize some friendly faces from The Eras Tour. I got to work with one of my favorite people in the world, Rodrigo Prieto, again! I had more fun than I ever imagined - Made new friends, metaphors, and fashion choices. It was an absolute thrill to create this story and these characters. Shot on film. The Opalite video is out now on Spotify & Apple Music. 

https://taylor.lnk.to/OpaliteMusicVideo

[platinumpainter]

Being ruined was my acceptance.

My new acceptance is ruining that acceptance

I don’t want to spend another second dwelling on false love. IT GAVE ME HOPE and that was enough for the time. Now it’s gone. I have no more hope because it has been replaced. Because the hope came, and now the need to be free is here.

And I am.

I’m in love with me and my life. My partner. My children and their lives.

I am not ok.

I am fucking SPECTACULAR.

I’m not shaking.

I’m VIBRATING.

On a new level. One that I’ve only read about. One that I didn’t believe existed. Also, one that I *hoped* did not, because I was altruistic in past dealings and it ebbed away at my survival of ME.

But you cannot ebb me away. Only I could do that, and I tried to for SO LONG. And I almost succeeded. Until I gave myself that last wish.

That last wish; that my mother said was going to be true.

I thank her for that power.

My Endora.

The nose knows.

[perfectquote]

“Never love anybody who treats you like you’re ordinary.”

— Oscar Wilde

[platinumpainter]

You are extraordinary. Those who love you know that.

[platinumpainter]

[platinumpainter]

40s are weird. I’m super horny but I’m too tired to do much about it.

[platinumpainter]

Oh, YOU.

How could you ask me that? Two DAYS before my wedding? Seriously?!!

Whether it was a joke or a snide comment or halfway serious, I am not sure but WHAT!?

My overthinking ass is just beyond where it usually sails.

“Do you want to get back together?”

I ignored it at first, just kept talking. Deciding if I was going to address it later or not. I did.

“No,” I said.

Because I don’t. You were not the person I needed you to be. You didn’t show up for me. I gave you time. I gave you ALL the time.

I gave you four years. You knew what I wanted. You weren’t going to meet me there. I knew it and so did you.

We wasted a lot of time with each other. We made the best of it—I don’t regret the hard work and even the fights because I learned what I didn’t want. It was apparent much earlier, but our denial was strong.

I know we meant something to each other. But that’s what it was—something.

And now my heart is twisted. It’s in pain.

Because it waited for your words to just give it a smidgen of hope for so long and then it came tonight.

Tonight!

What a world this is where your delusional way of expressing yourself finally says something that is hopeful!

Not aligned.

Not in agreement.

Not ever.

Not again.

Don’t do this to me. I’m a hard romantic. I sway with the wind. I flow with the shoreline. I breathe in the air of the “hope of it all”

No, Kevin.

I do not need you. You need you. And you just want to feel that you have someone for you, but you do not know how to be someone who someone needs.

[platinumpainter]

My old world shut down when I saw your eyes. Because at that moment there was a lightning bolt that shot right through my being. I woke up and found you, after an endless abyss kept me falling throughout my existence.

I had accepted you in every way and I didn’t even hear you speak yet.

Your dimples in your smile brought me back to Earth. You were real.

The winding invisible magnetism between us, surrounding us, reached out as you stood, forever a man made for me, and the curled up wisps of our auras bathed in each other as we stepped closer. My green, your blue. Birthing a sea of white hot flames and cosmic energies.

I poke you, still now. A human who is as alien as they come, who is as home as a person can be for me.

You have kissed me, you have loved me, you have annoyed me, and I have done all the same for you.

But when I am recuperating from the pulling, piercing, thrusting, overly sexual lovemaking that we can’t help ourselves but to have, you set me down. You relax me in a warm bath surrounded by candlelight and wine and tell me to take my time.

Then you tell me you will be gentle with me.

I am excited for the gentleness, although I haven’t had such luxury in a very long time, and I wonder if we will be able to contain ourselves because the astronomical pleasure that we derive from each other just escalates and we don’t know how to stop. Our time has been primal. Lovely, but seriously primal and intense. Gentle will be new for us.

Needless to say, we have perfected how to harness our intense energy towards each other because when the gentle lovemaking commenced, and I wasn’t even skeptical about it during the act, only before, the auras joined in our rhythm.

Finger pads sliding around backs and rubbing like thunder on our skin.

Eyes burning holes in each others heads. Lips dancing the tango with each other in between slow moans from our throats. I want to be one with this man. Not just with him inside me. I crave to be the same person so we could never live without the other again.

I waited a lifetime.

[platinumpainter]

You deserve someone whose presence calms you when you’re anxious and texts you perverted things at inappropriate times

[morningsonginmyhead]

[struggz2func]

too many stories written out in black and white, c’mon people of privilege it’s time to join the fight. … 

my mother was a feminist, she taught me to see that the road to ruin is paved with patriarchy. so, let the way of the women guide democracy. from plunder and pollution let mother earth be free. feminism ain’t about women. no, that’s not who it is for. it’s about a shifting consciousness that’ll bring an end to war. so listen up you fathers, listen up you sons, which side are you on now which side are you on?

-which side are you on?, ani d. 

GODDAMNIT THIS IS THE BEST PROTEST SONG I’VE EVER HEARD. 

[alanaeen]

I find solace in knowing I can survive alone. Human interactions are important, one needs a friend or a passer by to talk to, but I can still survive without them, this brings me utter pride and joy.

Alanae

[taylorswift]

When I was writing the Fortnight music video, I wanted to show you the worlds I saw in my head that served as the backdrop for making this music.  Pretty much everything in it is a metaphor or a reference to one corner of the album or another. For me, this video turned out to be the perfect visual representation of this record and the stories I tell in it. Post Malone blew me away on set as our tortured tragic hero and I’m so grateful to him for everything he put into this collaboration. I’m still laughing from getting to work with the coolest guys on earth, Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles (tortured poets, meet your colleagues from down the hall, the dead poets). I still can’t believe I get to work with the unfathomably brilliant Rodrigo Prieto on cinematography and my team of dream collaborators: Ethan Tobman (production design), Chancler Haynes (editor), Anthony Dimino (1st AD), Jil Hardin (producer) and Dom Thomas (executive producer). Parliament aced the VFX as always. Joseph Cassell, Lorrie Turk and Jemma Muradian made these tortured looks come to life. The entire crew made this a dream to shoot. Thank you to everyone involved and everyone who has watched it!! https://taylor.lnk.to/FortnightMV

[platinumpainter]

Your love was like COMMON CORE MATH. I wasn’t that great at Math before, but this was MUCH more confusing. I researched all I could to try to decipher this language you presented to me. You took me on a difficult journey and in the end, I had the same answer I had had with everyone else. Just this time, it was a much bigger problem that took much longer than it should have. It made me cry and doubt myself, and I didn’t feel like I accomplished anything along the way. What a waste of time.

Would you like to see more of this content?

Of course!

Not really thing

Voting ended onSep 22, 2023

[platinumpainter]

My heart was added to yours once. Now my own heart is divided after your subtraction and there’s a remainder of one.

[catchymemes]

[catchymemes]

[platinumpainter]

Your love was like COMMON CORE MATH. I wasn’t that great at Math before, but this was MUCH more confusing. I researched all I could to try to decipher this language you presented to me. You took me on a difficult journey and in the end, I had the same answer I had had with everyone else. Just this time, it was a much bigger problem that took much longer than it should have. It made me cry and doubt myself, and I didn’t feel like I accomplished anything along the way. What a waste of time.

Would you like to see more of this content?

Of course!

Not really thing

Voting ended onSep 22, 2023

[platinumpainter]

The person who’s been traumatized wants nothing more than love but because it’s so unfamiliar to them when they get it they’re suspicious of it and they reject it and they test it and they punish the person who’s trying to love them. Unless they meet somebody who is bad for them. And they meet somebody who’s bad for them and who is also abusive and is also neglectful this feels familiar! “I know how to navigate this person!” I’m gonna love you with all my heart, but someone who is consistent, caring, and loving? What’s wrong with you? Why are you loving me? This can’t be real let me test you. Let me swear at you. Let me shout at you let me pretend to break up with you. Let me test you. But you, the abusive, neglectful, narcissistic kind of partner, you’re exactly what the doctor ordered. I know exactly what to do with you, so I’m going to love you endlessly.

[platinumpainter]

“Your boyfriend now is the EXACT OPPOSITE your ex-husband was” he commented.

“Well let’s hope so,” I replied.

“Because I NEVER want to be in love like that again.”