"Mr. Brightside" by The Killers

So I let her go, my cute freckled little pet.  She had no quit in her, she held on for a long time after, but I let go.  Eventually, finally, she had no choice but to let go too and move on.  I was sure I was doing the right thing.  Since then, I have wondered, but I was so sure of it then.  I suppose it must have been the right thing to do if I was so sure of it in the moment.  At the very least, I'm proud that I had the moral uprightness to be able to adhere so firmly to a decision made based on principle. (Do I still have that same moral uprightness today? I don't know.)

When she started seeing someone else, he asked me if it was okay.  (He was a good friend.  It's too bad he won't talk to me anymore, but that's another story.)   I told him it was okay.  And it was.  It didn't bother me.  I was happy for the both of them.  But it only lasted a week.  Then she came back.

Later on, she got together with another guy, and that was fine with me too.  They asked for my approval and I gave it to them.  That relationship lasted a few months, I think.  She later told me it had been a mistake.

After a while, I decided, of course, that I wanted her back.  But by then it was too late. She really was gone.  I watched her jump from guy to guy, playing them all one off the other like pawns, learning to use her sexuality as a tool, or worse yet, as a weapon.  Was I her ultimate target?  Or just collateral damage?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGdGFtwCNBE

"Helplessness Blues" by Fleet Foxes

She spent seven years under a rock. While the rest of us were out playing/seeing the world/getting lost/getting found/getting drunk/getting high/sobering up, she was hibernating. Stagnating.

When I finally found her, I gave her a little plant. She kept it in her bedroom, in the basement of her parents' house. It wasn't getting enough sunlight down there, so it didn't get any bigger, but it didn't die either. I tried to convince her to put it somewhere with more sun, but she said no, she had to have it in her room close to her to feel as though it belonged to her.  So it just stayed exactly the same size for months and months, not growing, just sitting there, just surviving.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyP0DACgdgc

"I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston

She came out of the bathroom and strutted around my hotel room in a towel like she owned the place.  She started singing, "If I should stay / I would only be in your way."  The song was "I Will Always Love You."  Of course, I knew she didn't love me, but she had a lovely singing voice.

She was my girlfriend for ten days.  Well, not really my "girlfriend."  I met her my first night there, at the bar where she worked, and she just kinda stuck. We spent ten days together and became very close.

Years later, we would meet up again in another town.  By then, she had found herself a wealthy (and older) Australian boyfriend.  But she would tell me that somehow I was the best friend she had ever had.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPHCThqqt0s