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fortheloveofcringe · 5 years ago

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Dear Taylor Swift,

I wasn’t one of the fans who started during your first album, but I’m a Swiftie 4 lyf. You taught me lots of things and if you have time, kindly read this. I’m Hambert, I live in the Philippines and because of you, I honed my very own way of painting pictures through words because of your dedication to create an experience through literature and music. Back then, I was just a gay kid who loved K-pop music and wanted to just be in my own comfortable space, but I had so much to say, and was afraid of being ridiculed for it. I listened to your songs from your self-titled album and Fearless but I wasn’t a big fan, yet. But I appreciated the fact that no matter what you crafted, you always made sure that you focused on little things that made us excited and happy to be alive, plus the vivid scenes that you painted in my mind as a listener, it made me feel that no matter how limited my experience was in my subjective reality as a poor single mom’s child, you made me understand that words written from the heart will have more power than the words written in fear and hate.

I started becoming in love with your sweet careful storytelling during the Speak Now Era. I remember the cold day when someone shared online the prologue from the insert and that day changed the way I think about messages and the process of communication.

I started becoming serious with writing after reading these words from you, “There is a time for silence. There is a time waiting your turn. But if you know how you feel, and you clearly know what you need to say, you’ll know it. I don’t think you should wait, I think you should speak now.”

However, I am not proud to admit this but due to poverty, the only way for me to listen to your music back then was to download every track on YouTube that was uploaded on a random channel, obtained through a video downloader, played through a knock-off $3 iPod sold on the streets of our city and somehow, it was a sick pleasure.

That time was the first time you came to our country too, and I remember being spiteful of my truth, for being poor, that I was not able to attend such things and support you the way I wanted to support you in terms of artistic value. I felt ill knowing that this was how I was consuming your hardwork. So at an early age, I made sure I was able to find little jobs here and there to ensure stability, not just to support your craft but this circumstance also catapulted my belief in smart work and ensuring that my dreams wont be stuck in my head.

I was able to earn and make a living because of the drive I had, wherein that drive, that fire was sparked by your multi-colored lyric matchsticks, that lead to a rainbow blaze of desire to love my life despite being depressed at the same time for several circumstances, I can’t believe that was possible, to be able to still stand with bleeding feet.

When Red came out, I was already able to purchase your music and help my family, and you will never know how proud I was to be able to hold your Cd’s. It just felt so liberating to hold cold cash in my hands, too, for the first time in my life I felt so powerful. But it compromised my studies, I never liked being in school anyway, and I never was happy because the weird thing about life is that nothing will save you from yourself no matter how strong you think you are, and all I had was music to make me feel less alone and weak. Music stayed when people left me. When my father had 7 gunshots on his neck, my older brother, dark and frozen in his bed after cardiac arrest and my dear grandma who died in front of me because of complications caused by age.

The pain was so quick, but forgetting was so long. I have many red memories from different timelines, it made me guarded and when you released RED, I could have not been more thankful to you for being the boat that carried me through the oceans of pain and led me to a shore of peace, and acceptance.

I resigned from jobs that time, however. I’m not going to lie to you and say everything was fine by listening to you, but you helped to ease the pain I was going through. This was, as I call it my “Red light” moment, like in the traffic lights, I had to be still and re-assess.

Then Typhoon Yolanda (or Haiyan) was the worst thing that happened next in my reality. It took away a lot love and life from people around me, I remember my walk around the city after the deluge and I saw zombie-like people with no direction, I was heartbroken to see that, and it took your music away from me. I remember a rotten ache inside of me, a scream of useless anger when your cover inserts were covered in mud and the CD’s were flaking iridescent cracks. It’s crazy that no matter how much you value and protect things, there will always be occurrences when they will be taken away, just like that. My family was lucky that none of us got hurt, though, the scenes in my head from that storm, made me bitter. To see how these can just happen. My heart was turning to stone at every turn. I worked in different islands to recover. I had jobs where I was helping people out but nothing inside was healing.

You released 1989 and somehow, it started a culture of meditation in me. I made a deal with myself that if I recover what I lost, I would treat it with, let say, a sacred treatment. My way of listening to your music has changed. I never had actual fellow Swifties around me, so when you release an album and it gets delivered to me, I have a party for one. This party doesn’t start until I clean the WHOLE HOUSE, I read the lyrics and the notes you share, and then I take a long bath to make sure I’m ready to consume the gourmet of sonic cohesiveness. What I’m saying is that these practices, induced by your art, has made me reconnect with my peaceful, artistic self, the one who I almost lost because of everything that has happened and also because of the changes. To tell you frankly I just love a clean house, now! kinda helps you with thinking when the insides are a mess.

When I saved enough and when my aunts and mother were able to support me, I went back to school. When you started the Reputation Era, I was already in my 2nd year in college and I became an Editor-In-Chief in the student publication office. I worked hard day and night, I won a gold medal at the Tertiary Schools Press Conference for it and I was so proud of myself. I became somebody for a hot minute, but you were right, people do throw rocks at things that shine and it made my life hard. I had the power to publish anything over anyone at school, even the corruption and the malpractices and it became a threat to the people above me. People started fighting me, accusing me of things, putting me in situations that I felt so trapped I couldn’t do anything but just stay at home. What I built from hard work, crumbled down because of crab-mentality. They dismantled my reputation. I had no explanation to anyone. I felt weak even If I knew I can fight, I know it’ll just make things worse. I had a full scholarship at that time, friends and student staff who adored me, but for my sake, I dropped everything.

I stopped studying. You release Reputation. You made an album of what exactly what I was facing. The lonely anger and the brimming flame of revenge raged, but that album came as an expression of healing for me. I didn’t feel so alone with what I was going through because of that. Reputation was the rain I needed to soften up and turn flames to smoke and disappear in the dew of a new day.

I met a lover too, for the first time in my life, and after six months he broke my heart. I made hundreds of poems out of it, because you taught me that no matter what you go through, prose, poetry and music will always be my friend. I am no longer a captive of my own darkness, now I just see iridescent skies. NOW, I just know, that the love and the kindness I give to myself will help me live longer. I don’t know what experiences will occur for me during the Lover Era but I can guarantee you I am brimming with hope and happiness now that it has begun, and oh, I’m back in college ma’am!

I met a Lover from myself and thank you for sharing such a wonderful, dawn of an album to us. Thank you for Lover.

I am not hoping for this to reach your attention, but I have faith with the way our universe works, especially when it comes to love. Thank you Taylor.

A Lover,

-Hambert

#Lover #Taylor Nation #taylurking #taylor swift #taylorswift #taylornoticeme

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