Lyrical Verbosity: "Only" by Nine Inch Nails
by Daniel Beadle - Thursday, September 6, 2007
"I used to be a more well-defined person. I used to be recognizable. I used to have a clear set of values and priorities. But those days are fading into my past. I’m becoming less defined with each passing day. I’m losing my sense of self. And as a result of this, I have no clear sense of purpose; I have no clear future. In fact, I’m so out of touch with who I really am, or really was, that there are occasions that I think I don’t exist at all. Sometimes, I become invisible to myself. Sometimes I think I imagine this. (But other times, I know it’s real.)"I’ve become so ill defined as a human being, that I’m concerned less and less about fitting in with other people. I don’t care as much as I used to about following trends and being social. I don’t care about fitting into the world. Of course, the world is an abstract concept itself, so maybe I’m not so much refusing to fit into the world as I am refusing to fit into your world. But in either case, it doesn’t really matter… not anymore. In fact, nothing really matters any more. Not who I was, and not who I am, and certainly not 'the world.' It doesn’t matter, because everything is so fucking abstract that nothing really exists does it?
"Yes, I am alone. Maybe I always was. In fact, I can’t actually remember really connecting with anyone in my entire lifetime. Though there was you, but you’ve gone away, and now I have no proof that you ever existed. Maybe I made you up. Maybe I just made you up to hurt myself. And the more I think about it that way, the more I want to think about it that way, regardless of what the truth is. (Because there are no absolute truths, are there?) So maybe I’ll just repeat this mantra in my mind, so that I can take control of the hurt you inflicted on me: I just made you up to hurt myself. I just made you up to hurt myself. And I just made you up to hurt myself.
"If that is the way it happened, then it worked like a fucking charm, didn’t it? It worked all too well. But now I have a new mantra to repeat to myself. Now I have a new understanding about myself. You almost ripped away everything that defined me, but you know what? You never really existed to begin with. And I don’t need you to define myself. There is no you. There is only me. There is no you, there is only me. THERE IS NO FUCKING YOU, THERE IS ONLY ME. Only me. Only me."A long time ago, I used to be a more optimistic person. But it didn’t last. A tiny, obsessive thought snagged at my mind, and before long, I found myself drowning in misery. And now, that thought has returned to me. At first, I thought it was nothing important or significant, just like before, but I knew better. It was a thought that I couldn’t shake, and before long, it dragged me down into new depths of misery that I can barely comprehend.
"Now I’m in a dark place. I’m in a state of prolonged depression and self-inflicted suffering. I get the feeling that I’m not supposed to think like this, and that I’m seeing the horrible things that I really shouldn’t see. And I’ve learned something very important about myself, and about humanity in general: Things aren’t as pretty on the inside. We pretend that we’re all good people, but our base impulses and deepest desires are ugly things that lie in wait to eventually destroy us. I know. I’ve seen it all.
"But I take a mild amount of comfort that I am alone. Because I will cause myself enough pain to last a lifetime. You never existed to taunt me… I did that all on my own. There is no you, there is only me. Only me."
