Articulating Heartache

If you vaguely read entertainment gossip, then you may have heard about how R&B artist R Kelly decided to divorce his wife of 12 years after watching The Notebook as excerpted from his autobiography, "Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me":

"As the film credits started to roll, I couldn't move. I burst into tears. People walking past me patted me on the back, trying to console me. 'The Notebook' was beautiful, and I was crying because its hero and heroine had died together.

But I was also crying because I remembered a Valentine's Day -- when a helicopter dropped a rainfall of roses -- that had come and gone ... My marriage had died. And there was nothing I could do to bring it back."

Okay, not exactly the most moving words to me about heartbreak because I'm fairly lost about the rainfall of roses indicating a dying marriage (or was it the fact that Valentine's Day comes and goes?)  And well, not that touching when a grown-a$$ adult lets "The Notebook" be the deciding factor on ending a 12 year relationship. 

But the next day, I came across (via Twitter) these words of heartache from Frank Ocean (of the hip-hop group Odd Future) with his tumblr post of a screen capture entitled "thank you's".  Apparently they were going to be the liner notes on an upcoming album.  Here is a portion of it:

"...In the last year or 3 I've screamed at my creator.  Screamed at clouds in the sky.  For some explanation.  Mercy maybe.  For peace of mind to rain like manna somehow.  4 summers ago, I met somebody. I was 19 years old. He was too. We spent that summer, and the summer after, together. Everyday almost. And on the days we were together, time would glide. Most of the day I'd see him, and his smile. I'd hear his conversation and his silence ... until it was time to sleep. Sleep I would often share with him. By the time I realized I was in love, it was malignant. It was hopeless. There was no escaping, no negotiating with the feeling. No choice. It was my first love, it changed my life. Back then, my mind would wander to the women I had been with, the ones I cared for and thought I was in love with. I reminisced about the sentimental songs I enjoyed as a teenager.. The ones I played when I experienced a girlfriend for the first time. I realized they were written in a language I did not speak yet. I realized too much, too quickly. Imagine being thrown from a plane. I wasn't in a plane though. I was in a Nissan Maxima, the same one I packed up with bags and drove to Los Angeles in. I sat there and told my friend how I felt. I wept as the words left my mouth. I grieved for them, knowing I could never take them back for myself. He patted my back. He said kind things. He did his best, but he wouldn't admit the same. He had to go back inside soon. It was late and his girlfriend was waiting for him upstairs. He wouldn't tell me the truth about his feelings for me for another 3 years. I felt like I'd only imagined reciprocity for years. Now imagine being thrown from a cliff. No, I wasn't on a cliff, I was still in my car telling myself it was gonna be fine and to take deep breaths. I took the breaths and carried on. I kept up a peculiar friendship with him because I couldn't imagine keeping up my life without him. I struggled to master myself and my emotions. I wasn't always successful..."

Wow.  Did he not just totally capture that feeling of falling so hard for someone?  When time and the real world almost didn't matter?  "...time would glide."  And then coping with the heartache? "...still in my car telling myself it was gonna be fine and take deep breaths. I took the breaths and carried on."  It's sad that a source of his heartbreak is due in part to cultural stigma against same-gender relationships, but if you read the rest of it, he grew strong from this experience of first love/heartache which is also movingly and inspiringly worded as well.  "I don't have any secrets I need kept anymore ... I feel like a free man.”  Hopefully there is a future where heartache doesn't stem from that reason soon.

In the meantime, these words continue to slay me each time I re-read it.