Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Private Message | EchoZone Internal Chat
To: DeadStrings
Subject: Dreams
I can’t sleep. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: again? It happens a lot. I tried counting things. Those breathing exercises my best friend swears by, and I even challenged the ceiling to a staring contest—I lost.
Nothing worked, so I put on music. And “Dreams” came on—the irony, huh.
I always forget how much this song builds without ever pushing.
At first, Dolores sounds like she’s barely touching the words. Her voice is soft like she’s still deciding whether to let you hear what she’s feeling. There’s something so tentative in the opening—like falling in love when you’re still half-convinced it’s going to wreck you.
But then the drums come in, and the whole thing opens up.
It’s not a heartbreak song. It’s a pre-heartbreak song.
It’s what hope sounds like when it’s still nervous. When you’re starting to feel everything you swore you wouldn’t, and you don’t know if it’s freedom or danger—but either way, you’re too far in now to stop.
And the chorus . . . her life is changing every day in every possible way. What do you do with that? Plus, she doesn’t belt it. She lifts it. Like she’s holding something fragile in both hands and letting the wind carry it a little.
This isn’t na?ve love. It’s new love surrounded by the frightening unknown.
And tonight, for some reason, that hit me harder than anything sad. Because maybe the scariest thing isn’t losing someone. I mean, it hurts. It hurts so much that it might take you a lifetime to recover.
The scary part is letting yourself believe love is worth it in the first place. Giving it a try, more so when you’ve been broken before.
Anyway. That’s where I’m at.
Wrapped in dreams. Wide awake. Thinking about voices that break you. They crack you open even when they don’t intend to.
What do you put on when it’s too late for sleeping and too early for pretending?
Private Message | EchoZone Internal Chat
From: DeadStrings
To: StringTheory27
Date: April 28th, 1997, 2:41 AM
Subject: Re: Dreams
Oddly enough, I managed to fall asleep around nine. It’s probably because I spent a lot of time at the gym. It was the only way to deal with all the emotions stuck inside. So, I called that a win until . . . well, I’ve been awake since one o’clock.
I played “3AM” by Matchbox Twenty again. It’s always somewhere in the rotation when my brain won’t settle.
I should say—I’m not really a fan of theirs.
Their songs always feel close to capturing something, but they never quite arrive.
Like you’re waiting for a door to open that never does.
But maybe that’s why this one works when it’s dark out and everything feels too still.
There’s something about the rhythm. That guitar loop that doesn’t go anywhere, just moves in place.
It lets you drift.
Not upward, not out—just sideways. Far enough from everything you don’t want to feel.
The lyrics sound casual, like a conversation you weren’t meant to hear.
But underneath that—there’s someone barely holding things together. He’s caring for someone who can’t ask for help. And he’s not expecting anything in return.
There’s one line about her always being worried. That one stuck tonight. It says more in ten words than most songs do in four minutes.
Still . . . it doesn’t quite break open.
Something is missing, but I don’t know what.
It stays at arm’s length, even when you want it closer.
And maybe that’s what makes it a 2AM song. It keeps you company without trying to comfort you.
Anyway.
Looks like neither of us is sleeping.
But at least there’s music. Music that sometimes reminds you of her. The love that you fucked up but can’t forget. Do you have a list that I should listen to?
Private Message | EchoZone Internal Chat
From: StringTheory27
To: DeadStrings
Date: April 28th, 1997, 3:03 AM
Subject: Since we’re both up
You’re right.
“3AM” never really lands. It’s as if he knew what he needed to bring it all home but didn’t bother to deliver. We should message Robby and say, ‘Try isn’t enough. Not when you know you have the ingredients to make it great. The song just lingers outside the thing it’s trying to say.’
But you know what does land?
These.
Top Five for When You Can’t Sleep
(Alternate title: Songs That Remind You of the Love You Broke and Still Carry Around Like a Scar You Won’t Cover Up.)
“A Strange Kind of Love” —Peter Murphy
This song captures that exact moment when you realize something beautiful is already slipping out of your hands—and it’s your fault. There’s no edge, no blame. Just an ache you learn to live with.
Good luck, you fucked it up and now you have to deal with it—alone.
“Driving” —Everything but the Girl
This feels like a memory before it even finishes. It’s the voice of someone who’s already accepted how things ended but hasn’t quite let them go. It feels like sitting in the passenger seat while someone else drives through your memories, windows down, not saying anything.
She sounds like she’s trying not to wake something—some feeling she’s already buried once.
There’s no grand confession here. No final scene.
Just two people who once knew everything about each other, now trying to find the exits without causing a wreck. It’s the ache of remembering how close you used to be. And how far that closeness took you from yourself.
Some songs plead for reconciliation.
This one just asks you to sit with the loss long enough to realize it wasn’t nothing.
“Songbird” —Fleetwood Mac
There’s grace in this song. This is someone still carrying love, even after the door closed.
She’s not waiting. She’s not hoping.
She’s just saying what needed to be said.
She simply sings as if love itself was the gift, not a guarantee. And even though it’s over, she still offers it.
It’s not about loss—it’s about what remains after.
When someone still carries you in their voice but doesn’t ask you to turn around.
She’s not waiting. Not hoping. Just letting you go the way you should’ve been held.
And then there’s the piano. Each note played settles into you like breath after a long cry.
It grips—but not to take anything from you. It simply gives you the space to let go.
Like someone who sits next to you and says nothing, because they understand that’s what you need.
It’s one of those songs that shows you the truth without bitterness:
“I loved you. I still do. But I won’t ask for anything more because it’s over.”
And that’s somehow worse than heartbreak. There’s no mess to clean up, no argument to replay. All that remains is the quiet ache of someone loving you without expectation.
And if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of that, you know it lingers longer than any apology or goodbye.
“Dust in the Wind” —Kansas
There’s no crescendo, no emotional manipulation—just resignation. The lyrics don’t demand attention. They land like truths you already know but try not to speak out loud. You try to bury them.
Saying ‘we’re just dust’ is so simple and a painful truth. The song doesn’t ask you to cry, it reminds you that you haven’t let yourself feel anything in a while.
And then suddenly, it’s there—that ache just behind your ribs.
Not grief, exactly. Just awareness of how much you didn’t say. Of the people you should’ve held tighter. Of the time you let pass, thinking there’d always be more of it.
And the guitar—it doesn’t break you.
It undoes you.
One pluck at a time. Pulls at everything you’ve kept too still.
It’s this quiet unraveling of memory and silence. It’s definitely not meant to console.
It’s meant to tell you: You waited too long. And now it’s gone.
The love of your life left, and nothing you do will bring it back.
And that, my friend, that’s the part that hits hardest.
Not the sadness.
The simplicity.
How easily everything—every chance, every word unsaid—can just drift away.
And you’re left holding nothing but the echo of what you didn’t do.
“If You See Her, Say Hello” —Bob Dylan
It’s the song of someone pretending they’re fine, who knows they’re not, and still won’t say it out loud.
He’s not asking her to come back. He just wants her to know he remembers.
And somehow, that’s worse than begging.
Here is to no sleep and just songs that remind us of heartbreak and lots of regret.
I’ll trade you one for one if you’ve got anything left in the tank tonight.
Private Message | EchoZone Internal Chat
From: DeadStrings
To: StringTheory27
Date: April 28th, 1997 3:54 AM
Subject: Re: Dust / Songbird / Silence
Funny that you brought up Peter Murphy when talking about songs that don’t just sit with you—but stand in the corner like something you thought you’d buried. He’s got one.
“Cuts You Up” —Peter Murphy
It’s a catchy song that I listen to often. I don’t even know if I truly understand this song. And maybe that’s the twist, the point of those lyrics.
It’s written like a letter to someone—maybe a lover, maybe not. But the deeper you go, the more it sounds like he’s writing to a part of himself. Something he can’t get rid of. Something inside him, on him, with him. Always.
There’s this line where he’s talking to the thing (or person) about the way it throws around. About how it takes you in and spits you out.
That’s not a breakup. That’s living with something you can’t explain.
Anxiety. Depression. Self-doubt. Maybe it started as love. Maybe it never was.
What kills me is how upbeat the song is. The strings, that drumline—it moves like something alive. You could almost dance to it, if it didn’t feel like your ribs were holding in a scream.
And that’s where it hits: Murphy’s not being ironic.
He’s showing what it looks like to carry darkness and still (barely) function.
To walk around in daylight with this thing beneath your skin, this presence that doesn’t leave, doesn’t even yell.
It just reminds you it’s there.
It’s not violent because it doesn’t need to be. It’s simply quiet devastation. Like waking up next to your fear and realizing you don’t even flinch anymore. You have to survive with it.
He sings like someone who’s been keeping it together for too long.
Like he knows naming it might destroy him, so instead, he writes around it.
Lets the strings do the talking.
And you (us)—the listener—we fill in the blanks with whatever we’re afraid of.
That’s why it never leaves you.
Because it doesn’t tell you what it is.
It just asks if you’ve met it too.
And the truth is—you have. We all have. Even if we don’t always recognize it at first.
Some people encounter it early, before they know what to call it. For others, it shows up after the damage is done—it settles in beside you and refuses to leave.
Sometimes it’s the low hum in the background of your best days, the dull ache in your chest when things are going well and you still can’t breathe right.
The real secret isn’t whether it’s there. It’s what we do with it once we realize it is.
Some people avoid it altogether—keep their heads down, create distractions, fill every second with movement or noise so they don’t have to look too closely.
Others try to fight it, hard, like wrestling shadows.
They wear themselves out trying to be stronger than it, as if strength means never feeling the thing that’s been following them around for years.
And then there are the ones who learn to sit with it.
They do it not because they like it or because they’ve surrendered to it, but because they understand there’s no getting rid of something so deeply woven into how they process the world.
They live their lives next to it. They learn its shape, its patterns, the way it shifts at night.
They don’t embrace it—but they stop pretending it isn’t there.
Either way, it’s a fight. Every damn day.
A fight to keep showing up, keep making things, keep connecting.
Sometimes keep reaching for something—anything—that feels like light, even if you’re not sure what you’ll find when you get there.
And maybe that’s enough.
Not to fix it.
But to remind yourself that you’re still here. That you still get to choose what kind of story you live in, even if some parts were written without your permission.
That’s why I keep listening.
Maybe that’s also why I keep writing to you.
Because even when I know that music doesn’t cure it, I now remember that music soothes it. Through music, I can let myself feel, even breathe, and love.
So, thank you for chatting with this insomniac and helping me find what I might be looking for.