True Crime

I’ve been away from lyric writing for a long time, but I got a few lines stuck in my head, and they refused to leave me alone, so I wrote this.

I see the storm clouds gathering
Rumbling in the distance
It was already hazy to begin with
Soon it’ll come crashing in
 
You’re angry at the world
and at yourself
And I made you into the villain
Pretended I was innocent
In the end it didn’t make a difference
 
We both said things we didn’t really mean
I’m still just trying not to bleed
Learned to tuck myself away
Pretended it was okay
Now the cold’s here anyway
There’s nothing left to say
 
You’re angry at the world
And at yourself
But I made you into the villain
Pretended I was innocent
We both knew that I wasn’t
 
Try to salvage what we can
Wrecked things til the end
Maybe one day we’ll make amends
I’ll offer you a hand
And we’ll rebuild what we can
 
But you’re angry at the world
And you’re angry at yourself
And I made you into the villain
Like I didn’t fit your plans
 
We both said things we didn’t mean
I’m still just trying not to bleed
The cold came anyway
Now there’s nothing left to say
 
Because you’re angry at the world
And you’re angry at yourself
I made you into the villain
So I didn’t have to be
But the storm came anyway
Wrecked things til the end
 
You’re angry at the world
You’re angry I couldn’t see
I made you into the villain
So I didn’t have to be

Process

My mentee and I were talking through her second submission piece, and I developed a general prompt for her to write a poem or two with: write something inspired, however closely or loosely, by nature. I gave her a set of words to think about, and we decided it’d be nice to both write a piece since I’ve been trying to get back into lyric writing. This is the piece that I came up with, expanding on some lines that had gotten stuck in my head. Funny enough, I wrote mine inspired by a “storm” and she wrote hers on “rain.” I think our pieces are quite complementary. We edited one another’s pieces, and this is the end result of mine.

Genre / Medium

Lyrics & Songwriting Poetry

Topic

Heartbreak Love Relationship

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Fiction

Jessica Sun

Jessica Sun is the program coordinator for the Artists at Risk Connection at PEN America. Previously, she was the interim executive assistant and Board liaison at PEN America, a research assistant for Dr. Ellen Chesler at the Roosevelt Institute, and interned at the American Ballet Theatre and an Assembly member’s office, among other experiences. She is also a Girls Write Now mentor, providing college and career mentorship to a high school student, and an incoming Community Fellow at the Institute for Nonprofit Practice. She was a 2018 Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) JSI Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and a Fulbright semi-finalist for interdisciplinary research in Argentina. She holds a BA in Political Science and a certificate in Public Policy, with concentrations in international development, international relations, and human rights, from Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College.