When Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department arrived in April 2024, I’d recently extricated myself from a decade-long (yikes) situationship. It was a time of liberation and heartache and excitement and uncertainty. This transformation was transpiring at the same time I was pitching a new book idea — a book that would eventually become The Story of You. Needless to say, The Tortured Poets Department debuted at precisely the right time.
Now, nearly a year later, I thought it would be fun (and therapeutic!) to go back and reflect on some of the lyrics I illustrated when the album first came out.
“Six weeks of breathing clean air / I still miss the smoke” — “The Black Dog”
One of the first illustrations I created (see above) was inspired by “The Black Dog.” In the song, The Black Dog is the name of a bar, and the sounds and letters in the name strangely mirror the name of the bar where he was (is?) a barfly. This grabbed my attention immediately.
And, of course, it was also a lyrical representation of how I felt at that time — lingering confusion mixed with anger and disbelief. (At him and also at myself.) The visions of him entering a bar, the place I picture him most often, were echoed in the lyrics of this song.
Additionally, because music had been “intertwined in the magic fabric of our dreaming,” this aspect of the song really hit home. There were countless times in our history when he’d point out the song playing in a bar or restaurant. I loved his excitement for music, but looking back, I remember these “do you know this song?” interruptions often happened in the middle of me speaking. He was listening to the music, not to me.
“You didn’t measure up / In any measure of a man” — “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”
I illustrated this one early on, too, because the raw rage of this song hit hard for me. The magnifying glass was the first thing to come to mind, and it paired perfectly with the clover, so symbolic of the day we met.
Like Taylor, I, too, wanted to know if rusting my sparkling summer was his goal. I wanted to know what the point of all of it was. And, though Taylor doesn’t say this in the lyrics, I also wanted to turn the questions on myself too. Why did I do it? Were the years spent with him something to write about? Was I the one kicking out the stage lights while still performing?
I still don’t know if I have clear answers to those questions, but one thing I definitely knew after hearing it echoed in Taylor’s lyrics: He never measured up in any measure of a man.
This is something he knew, too. In the last conversation we had, he talked about never feeling like a man despite being a full-grown adult. And, though I reassured his tiny ego in that conversation, looking back I wish I told him this: he is a man — just not the kind of man he thought he would be.
“Years of labor, locks and ceilings / In the shade of how he was feelin’ / But it’s gonna be alright, I did my time” — “Fresh Out the Slammer”
Illustrated as part of my TTPD set of illustrations (see it here), this song was another early favorite. Though Taylor is likely singing about running from one relationship to another, for me this song was symbolic of the freedom I felt in walking away from a relationship and towards myself.
No longer would I be subject to his moods, to the two-faced whims of his drunk and sober sides. This song echoed how it felt to be freeing myself from a prison of my own making. I was the prisoner. I was the jailer. (Perhaps even the jail.)
Taylor might have been running to the arms of someone else after she freed herself, but I was running back to myself. I knew better now. I had been writing about him for years, but I’d always swirled myself into those poems. I was the one waiting for me, porch light on. No matter what I’d done, it was gonna be alright. I’d done the time (oh, all that time…), but I wasn’t going to screw it up now.
“Who’s gonna stop us from waltzing back into rekindled flames? — “loml”
A song I could have written myself, I had to illustrate that lyrical line more than once — rekindle it, you might say. He and I were a rekindled flame. After years of falling in and out of love with other people, time spent with him continued reignite something in me.
Even as years passed, I was always killing time at that cemetery of us. I was always lingering in that place where we were never quite buried.
I should’ve seen it was unnecessary. I should’ve let it stay buried. I should’ve known that Mr. Steal-Your-Girl would leave me in tears. But I waltzed back into those rekindled flames, embroidering even more memories, and confirming a truth I’d always known: sometimes the love of your life is also the loss of your life.
“My friends said it isn’t right to be scared / Every day of a love affair / Every breath feels like rarest air / When you’re not sure if he wants to be there / So how much sad did you think I had, / Did you think I had in me?” — “So Long, London”
Anyone who’s been in a long-term, dying relationship can relate to this song. (See illustration here.) At one point, I would have gone down with the ship of us, would have done anything but let go of my white-knuckled grip. But there’s only so low I can go before I have to break free.
This song speaks to that breaking point, the moment (or moments — it’s rarely just one) when I realized the ship had sunk too far to be salvaged. When there was more sadness than sunshine, I finally admitted that going down with the ship was going to kill the best parts of me.
I couldn’t handle anymore self-imposed tragedy. I couldn’t carrying whatever it was that we were anymore. And, while “I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free,” I wasn’t going to let sunk-cost bias get me.
As Taylor sings in “it’s time to go” (from evermore), “He’s got my past frozen behind glass / But I’ve got me.” It took a long time for me to say so long (it always does), but I’m proud of myself for finally jumping ship.
“Say it once again with feeling / How the death rattle breathing / Silenced as the soul was leaving / The deflation of our dreaming / Leaving me bereft and reeling / My beloved ghost and me / Sitting in a tree / D-Y-I-N-G / It’s happenin’ again / How did it end? / I can’t pretend like I understand / How did it end?” — “How Did It End?”
This one I didn’t illustrate until much later. At first listen, the lyrics felt like they were about him — the disbelief and confusion in realizing that it was actually, surprisingly over after all of this time. The dream was deflated. The truth was stated: I was the hothouse flower to his outdoorsman. Our maladies were incurable, and I was alone with a ghost. (Had I always been alone with a ghost? A question that anyone who has been involved with someone who has substance abuse issues always asks.)
But in November, when I actually illustrated this, the song symbolized something else entirely. It had happened again. I was walking in circles in shops. I was bereft and reeling. The dream of a better future deflated. The game of chance lost. The smugness of those who couldn’t yet hear the death rattle breathing. Grieving for women, for a country, for the world (despite their empathetic hunger), I couldn’t pretend I understood how it happened again.
The song became about so much more than him, and I still can’t listen to it without thinking of last November, without feel the horrifying numbness of that morning, that mourning.
“And I just watched it happen / As the decade would play us for fools” — “Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus”
(See illustration here.) A decade of a situationship is a hell of a thing to endure. Only a fool could do it. I turned him “into an idea of sorts” (and I bet he did the same with me). He said so many things “that I can’t unabsorb.” Through all of those years, “I changed into goddesses, villains and fools. Changed plans and lovers and outfits and rules.” But none of it matters when it’s not meant to be.
I rewrote the story over and over again. I tried to float in his orbit. Tried never to force it. Tried to do anything to make sure I would never wonder. And, as destructive as all of it was — “It was a mutual manic phase,” as Taylor wrote in “In Summation” — at least I can say this with certainty: I don’t have to wonder if I will always wonder.
“I cry a lot but I am so productive, it’s an art / You know you’re good when you can even do it / With a broken heart” — “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”
This was another early-on illustration. I was working on not-yet-titled The Story of You, listening to all of these Taylor songs, and most of them were, in some way or another, connected to him. Taylor’s self-titled album debuted right before I met him and, as a result, memories have been woven into the lyrics of every Taylor album for nearly two decades.
Let’s just say… I cried a lot. But working on the book — revisiting all of those moments with and without him through lyrics — was therapeutic. Cathartic. Productive, even.
I was having the time of my life working on this dream project, but underneath it all I was combing through the past, the lyrics like snapshots of joy and pain, love and disappointment. It parallels how I imagine Taylor must have felt during the early Eras Tour moments — striving to enjoy the magical moments while combating loss.
At some point last spring, I found his t-shirt in a drawer. It was, as Taylor says in the lyrics, “crucial evidence, I didn’t imagine the whole thing.” Because that’s how it feels in a situationship, doesn’t it? Like it might all be a dream. Like it didn’t actually happen. But there was his shirt, the proof.
It was heartbreaking seeing the lyrics play out in my reality, but the T-shirt got trashed, the tears dried, and there I was, hitting my marks with every new page I wrote and illustrated in The Story of You.
“But I can’t forget the way you made me heal… / But I can’t forget the way you made me heal” — “thanK you aIMee”
The duality expressed in this one (see illustration here), the recognition of a situation being both soul-crushing and motivating at the same time, really resonated with me. You see, there was something that happened with him years ago that had led me to have multiple surgeries, to face years and years of chronic pain that often kept me bed-bound. (To be clear, this wasn’t his fault — it wasn’t purposefully-cause pain — but it also wouldn’t have happened without him.)
But even with the pain searing, I was building something. It was during this time that I was gifted an iPad (thanks, Mom and Dad!), and I began incorporating more illustrations in my work. The time in bed gave me time to explore new creative options for my work. This changed the trajectory of my career, and led to experiences I might never have had if it weren’t for what happened.
Though wasn’t writing songs like Taylor, I was creating things he had belittled in the past. ( The line “your words still ringing in my head” hits hard for me.) And so I was able to relate to (and find strength in) these lines: “I wrote a thousand songs that you find uncool / I built a legacy that you can’t undo / But when I count the scars, there’s a moment of truth / That there wouldn’t be this if there hadn’t been you.”
Would I have made all the work I have without those surgeries? Without all of that pain that kept me bed-bound? Perhaps. But there’s a possibility that, without those scars, Positively Present wouldn’t be what it is today.
“Does it feel alright to not know me? / I’m addicted to the ‘if only’” — “I Look in People’s Windows”
This song perfectly captures that wistful disbelief you feel when it’s finally over and, even though you know this is the best thing for you, you find it hard not to keep looking and hoping.
For months, I looked for him in every bar. I imagined his car pulling up my street. I envisioned stopping every time I drove past his house. I dreamt of his eyes meeting mine again. The “if only” thoughts can be hard to shake.
Though I know that the “if only” ending would have been a tragedy for me, that to be trapped in that state of anxiety forever would have brought me nothing but more years of heartache, it’s still hard hard not to be afflicted by the not knowing, the not knowing him anymore. (And that’s okay. Healing is rarely a linear process!)
“But as she was leaving / It felt like breathing” — “The Bolter”
Though it’s one the most relatable tracks on the album for me, I didn’t illustrate “The Bolter” until the final round of edits for The Story of You. It was a last minute addition to the book, a page created when another had to be cut.
But it was a perfect one to be the last page I illustrated because, for better or worse (probably worse?), I’m a bolter. As Taylor wrote, “She’s been many places with / Men of many faces / First, they’re off to the races / And she’s laughing drawin’ aces / But, none of it is changin’ / That the chariot is waitin’ / Hearts are hers for the breakin’ / There’s escape in escaping.”
There’s something liberating about knowing that chariot is waiting. Maybe, like the character in the song (Taylor herself?), I’m splendidly selfish, charmingly helpless, and excellent fun ’til you get to know me. Maybe I just love “taming a bear, making him care,” before I bolt. Maybe relating to “The Bolter” is something I should look into, but leaving really did feel like breathing — and I’m just glad I came out alive.
“Now and then I reread the manuscript / But the story isn’t mine anymore” — “The Manuscript”
This song couldn’t have been more perfect, given that I was working on a manuscript not long after it debuted, a manuscript that had me spending a lot of time looking backwards as I tried to move forward.
“And the years passed / Like scenes of a show / The Professor said to write what you know / Lookin’ backwards / Might be the only way to move forward / Then the actors / Were hitting their marks / And the slow dance / Was alight with the sparks / And the tears fell / In synchronicity with the score / And at last / She knew what the agony had been for.”
That entire part felt written for me. I was looking back, through all of these years of lyrics and memories, and I was moving forward. Maybe I’m just trying to give meaning to my pain (a favorite pastime of mine), but it felt like all of those years in agony had led to this moment, this manuscript. Through this lyrical journey into the past, I was able to discover new aspects of myself and use them to create something that will help others with their own self-discovery.
If I’ve learned one thing throughout the past year, it’s this: letting go can be scary, looking back can be overwhelming, but if you choose to be brave, life with reward you in ways you never dreamed possible. Looking back, I can say with certainty that the past year has been one of the best in my life, hard as it was, and a lot of that is due to the lyrics I listened to and the work I created with them. I poured my heart and soul into this book, and I can’t wait for you to see it in person in September!
Check out The Story of You: A Swiftie Journal & Coloring Book for Self-Discovery for more Taylor-inspired inspiration and introspection. Available wherever you like to buy books or pre-order here.
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