The other day, you asked me what I thought of you. I had paragraphs written out, most of which were about music, and it went on and on and I realized I’m slowly starting to miss the point. The point wasn't how you introduced me to music. The point was about you. So: shift, up and up and up, backspace. All gone, more room for the real thing.
What do I think of you? The world. You are my best friend. Have I said that before?
There are not enough synonyms to I love you. Show don't tell, sure, but sometimes you want to tell, and I want to tell you how much you mean to me, but my brain-to-mouth filter parses it as "I love you, bro," and then I stand here, fraternity member that I am, doing the equivalent of a pat on your shoulder. I struggle to talk about the things I love; I always have. It’s easier to talk about anything but why you love something. You know this, of course. You’d have clowned me had I published the thing with the music. Like, just have a little laugh, think, here she goes with her nonsensical words. But you'd also feel the love, from this side of the pond all the way to yours. I imagine you’ll read this and laugh, too, because in the five years we’ve known each other, I think this is the one thing that didn’t change about me. So many words. So little of the actual point. Some writer I am.
You'd think this would be the same reason I can't talk about Beyoncé. It is, in a way.
The main reason why I can't talk about Beyoncé as an isolated artist, more often than not, it's because I just inherently relate her to you. You can ask me to, and I'll manage to talk about her, her artistry, her vision; I have before, too. But with friends? I'll just turn to goo and call it a day. It’s not how we met, but it’s how we bonded. This is something all our friends know. Of course it’s also something you’re familiar with. I listened to Beyoncé's discography again because of you. I don’t remember why I did it, exactly. I think I wanted to get to know you. I think I wanted you to like me, and it would be the last time I ever went out of my way with anyone to that degree. Mostly, I was impressed by your music taste. A year after graduation, I realized just how much music I was missing out on, for how long I’d subjected myself to just K-Pop, and I remember looking at your last.fm stats, and the top artists were Beyoncé-Rihanna-A$AP Rocky-Charli XCX. So, Beyoncé I started out with. I started with self-titled. You know it's my favorite now. I remember where I was — it was in a building this company has no longer booked, a classic big office room, and I was not working, I never was in 2017. On that day, I was watching Beyoncé’s clips for her self-titled one by one. When she talked about music being this experience for her, back when she grew up and it was visuals and music both, I felt transported back to my own childhood - I imagine so were you. That time when you watch MTV and you watch all these clips, and it's not music and video separately, but both at once. An event.
I remember being impressed by Partition most back then. Give me a snap, a quick percussion, and you have my attention. XO is your classic torch song, and I remember being impressed with that song, too. And lastly, Superpower, though that’s more because it was your favorite song. Not that the song is bad. No Beyoncé song is bad. (I mean, there are some candidates that kinda go there, but…) But already, before I had even heard the song, it was a song I had associated with you. Those operatic vocals at the back, Beyoncé at her most gentle: when the palm of my two hands… hold each other… that feels different…
I like self-titled the most because it's so disjointed. There's no narrative that runs coherently from start to end; Beyoncé had done it for 4, would do that for Lemonade, and later, to some degree, for both Everything is Love and The Gift, our first eras together. But self-titled feels like how my mind feels. It's many different energies at once, and at no point does Beyoncé stop to explain them. In one song, she tells bitches to bow down; two minutes later, she declares you wake up: flawless. She'll talk about being jealous, but the next song will be an old school sex jam that has Beyoncé croon baby boomers, the baby reverberating, cyclical trends. There is no irony here, or a joke for that matter. She means it, whatever it is. Not to make this about us (of course I'll make this about us), but I feel like we're the same. There was one time where we had to explain to each other where we were at. I remember where I was back then, too. In the subway that traveled uphill, a wall with ivy growing to my left, an abandoned building on the horizon to my right. I was on my way to work. It was the most uncomfortable I've ever felt when you had to really talk about me... how you wanted to be consoled. Not because of you. Never. It was because I had thought I had understood you, and I didn't, and I only then realized just how much I was lacking as a friend. I hadn't met you where you were at.
Me, I'm just bad at explaining myself. I think I'm transparent, sure, but what I need, not even I will know. Mostly I talk and the words go nowhere. But you see through me when I get into those moods. That comfort I will feel like it's a real hug. I will forever be grateful for you.
And I want you to know it's not the only moment with the two of us that I can recall with perfect clarity. There's that day where we discussed persona, I think; I was in a hotel room and preparing myself for the seminar. You were on Kakaotalk, and we had this crazy long and amazing conversation. I remember that, of course. That night when I deactivated Twitter in a hurry, and you asked me what was wrong; I couldn't tell you the date, but I could tell you just about everything else that happened. You were the only person I told it all to in detail. Later you would say that was when you knew something clicked between us. I think it's the cleanest point, that moment; well, what with it being so intense, no wonder. For me... I couldn't tell you the date, I couldn't tell you where I was, but I could tell you that I used TweetDeck for it, when you followed me on my new account that I made so hurriedly to escape from this person, and I followed you from your private account and you wanted some support so I sent you some. It's that moment for me. Maybe on my end, some of it was politeness. Or maybe, it was looking into the future: the kind of friendship we'd have, and still do. Maybe I took a chance, because you gave me that chance. You wanted someone to hold your hand. So I did.
Lemonade I had caught up to a few months after it was released. I remember telling you this, but back when I thought I hated trap, Sorry — an obvious trap song — was a song I would loop over and over. So, for my discography deep dive for her, back then, I didn't listen to Lemonade again. From self-titled I went over to 4 — a record I did not get back then, God help me, it was embarrassing — and I Am Sasha Fierce. I am not sure if I told you that straightaway or if I told you that later, but Austria stopped putting Beyoncé on radio after IASF. That meant I missed the three albums most commonly recognized as her career highlights. I do remember, though, how the first Beyoncé opinion I had was how If I Were A Boy was a lesbian song. I remember how you retweeted it, and I remember how enthusiastic you were with me. I remember how I told you sometime while checking out Rihanna that I listened to these discographies because of you: you were so happy to hear that, it made me happy too.
For us, I think music has always been a means of communicating when we couldn’t in other ways. Music was a way to be… happy, maybe, or comfortable when things weren’t that way for either of us. There didn't need to be an explanation when we said the song was good. It was just fact: it just was. And, when it was just the two of us, we were just us, not constructed, explained version of ourselves. You get used and abused by people and only then you realize what a gift this is. We learned this too, through each other. Music made things so easy. You liked sharing, you love sharing, and I was eager to learn.
It’s funny now, of course. I listen to so much new music that I recommend you new releases these days. You share a song you like and we see each other. (Except the times we don't, but these will never not have me cackle out loud.) (And, okay, the funniest time this happened to us has got to be Playboi Carti's Whole Lotta Red, because you knew you'd come around to it and I was already celebrating it on the day of.) The radar and the archive. It’s easy to forget, to pretend we’ve always been this way, or that I’ve always been what I am now. To forget would be to take things for granted. I don’t want to take you for granted. Because to take you for granted would mean I wouldn’t see you.
I wonder if people, I mean non-Beyoncé fans, see Beyoncé. I don't think they do. I think contrarians have it too easy with her that it almost gets boring. (Remember how I used to entertain people like that on #that server? Please.) But then, not even Beyoncé fans get Beyoncé sometimes. We've seen reception to Everything is Love. To this day I think it's a release made for us only, and yes, that includes the 500 second long verses from Jay Z's end. The way in which Beyoncé raps and sings so flawlessly, finally in one slim record. I'm representing for the hustlers all across the world! Her with that raspy, sexy voice. Back before both of us relistened (for you; listened for the first time in proper for me) listened to Jay Z, we would joke about him endlessly. FRIENDS, the song with his 50 minute verse. I love that summer and I always will. It took me around an hour more to get to home, but I had Playboi Carti's Die Lit with me and one of the best seasons of Rupaul's Drag Race (S8) and I had this record with me and we had the time of our lives. When we reminisce about how annoying we used to be, summer 2018 is the one I think of. All my life I used to be terrified of being seen as annoying, or talking too much, or being too loud, or being myself. If I can laugh at any of my coworkers saying I'm really irritating (and I do, and I am, and I will), it's because of you. You've always wanted me to stop giving a damn. You've always shown me how I could truly open up.
Recently I thought of Formation’s chorus. I dream it / I work hard / I grind till I own it. I know not everybody is like this. Not everybody moves in life like they want something so desperately that without it, they’d fall apart. Not everybody works as hard to fulfill their dreams as I do. And I thought of you then, of how you do, and you’ve always understood. How we’ve always been the same about that: so sure that we’ll fulfill our dreams that we’ve taken every leap necessary to get there. Makes me think of what Beyoncé keeps saying these days, to stop and smell the flowers. Our flowers sit pretty on this metaphorical porch that is our friendship. The flowers are our friendship and we've looked after each other well. Singing along to Beyoncé lyrics. Watching her concert DVDs one by one. Our matching display names. Our matching hashtags. The gifts we've sent to each other. The letters. The hearts. You're the person that makes the cowboy emoji look cute. You're so cute your lovers can count themselves lucky. So smart. You just don't think it's worth flaunting it. You know; if others can't, that's their loss. And that makes you so cool too. People don't like that combination, least of all crabs in the bucket. I do, though. On that topic, I'm the only one who matters. And I see you. I may not always have done so, but I see you now, and I see where and how you put in the work, and where and how you shine, and I see what you do. Remember when we talked about improving, and overcoming the struggle, and — I think this was the morning commute I talked about earlier — I said that it was an uphill climb where every step hurt and you didn't notice you'd come a long way until you stopped to admire the view? Very fancy, I know. It was either that or struggling against the waves that was life. (Writers are so annoying, God bless.) This is it. Here is California. There are all my submissions to stories where the mere thought would leave me shaking like a wet dog.
We're the view. Do you see it now? We're the view. And man, we just look so good.
You mention to me a lot how good California does to you these days. That is when you're almost about to fall asleep and I'm only just waking up, or deep into work. I can tell. It's not just the fact we have a really small window of conversation these days (though, I mean... yeah.) It's the way you seem so at peace. It's hard to describe the vibe you get off texts, off pixels. But that's the vibe I get from you. Me, I just got colder. I care less and I got harder. More Viennese, maybe. Not to you, never to you, but to the world. It's funny how we grow separately and walk this path together, what it makes of us. It's such a far call from what we were when we first met, at odds, because I made an edgy 2ne1 comment. Now, the postcard you sent me is tucked safely between my drawing and my writing block. Does the sun shine on your face every day? They say it never rains in California. We've never had a rainy day between us either. No fight. Not even an argument. That one time wasn't an argument either; it was me not being there for you. A blip. An exception to the rule. Maybe just a margin of error; you know me.
I hope the peace always stays with you, and that all the roads you take lead you to the right place at the right time. Hollywood is not ready for us, I don't think. And neither is our timeline, for that matter, when Beyoncé finally, finally!!!!, releases her first solo record in four+ years. Oh God we're going to be so annoying, and it's a threat to everyone but to us, and we're going to have the most fun we ever had!
I can't talk about the things I love. I can't get to the point. I mean all this to say that I wish you a happy birthday, and I spend so many words to say thank you for being in my life, and thank you for bringing me to Beyoncé. Thank you. I love you. I hope we will be friends forever.