PORTALS and the experience of abusive relationships

By: Ryan (Simulationth3ry) 

Thesis: PORTALS by Melanie Martinez is an album that’s an allegory for an abusive relationship

DEATH and the beginning of the end:

I believe this song starts from after the abusive relationship ends. Since this is track one, it means the album starts from the end and Crybaby as her reborn self is recounting the relationship and speaking on it after the fact with her newfound voice. In the music video, we can see her old self is dead and she’s wearing the same outfit she wore with Oliver. Her old self in the abusive relationship must die for her to emerge. In her reborn form, she is strong enough to finally speak on what happened in the relationship as Crybaby in this new form. This new form represents her finding her voice, taking control of her own life, undergoing a transformation as a result of breaking free, and also she felt dehumanized by her treatment in the relationship which manifests as her as this creature. The song titles are in all capitals because she is screaming and using her voice powerfully to assert herself. She will not let herself be silenced again.

It’s also important to note that the thematic work of Melanie takes place over the course of a sole character’s life. Crybaby (the album) is about childhood (seen by songs such as ‘Training Wheels’, ‘Play Date’, ‘Teddy Bear', ‘Dollhouse’, ‘Sippy Cup’) and likely is named after the character herself because this is her birth. K-12 is kindergarten to senior year of high school (seen by how the first song being ‘Wheels on the Bus’… a childhood rhyme… and the last songs being ‘High School Sweethearts’ and ‘Recess’… ‘High School Sweethearts’ signifying aging into high school and ‘Recess’ is when school gets out in a typical school day but in this case it signifies graduation… it shows the progression of elementary school to high school). After School can be seen as the more vulnerable moments of the K-12 era or the transition from post high school into full adulthood… and PORTALS is adulthood. Even the name is significant: portal into full adulthood. Or perhaps portal in reference to portal into the abusive relationship… When you’re in an abusive relationship, things are disorienting and altered. So perhaps entering the portal also means entering the abusive relationship and said relationship takes place while one is in the portal and Melanie must escape the portal aka the abusive relationship and leave this altered reality back to the normal world through another portal back into normalcy (dual meaning of portal).

Why are we covering the previous eras? Well, by doing so, we see the seeds that led up to Crybaby in the abusive relationship that is being described in PORTALS.

Because of Crybaby’s rough childhood, she becomes conditioned to accepting toxicity and putting up with mistreatment. In Crybaby she has several toxic relationships and we can see her attitudes towards them. In ‘Teddy Bear', her attitude is desperate and despairing. She pleads and asks:

“Teddy bear, you were my teddy bear

You were comforting and quiet

How did love become so violent?

Oh, teddy bear, you were my teddy bear

Everything was so sweet until you tried to kill me”

She’s confused on how someone she once loved who was sweet turned into something evil that wanted to hurt her. Here, she struggles with romanticization of the person in question by reminiscing on how sweet they were prior to the violence. It’s common for abusers to start out sweet and then switch up and morph into something else. In the era of Crybaby, she is unable to fully break out of the abusive cycle, since she experiences multiple toxic relationships. She even blames herself for her relationship failings and her self esteem is lowered as a result (seen in ‘Mrs. Potato head’ where she wants to beautiful and realizes the painful cost that comes with beauty)

In K-12, we can see her starting to find her voice with how she stands up for herself in ‘Drama Club’. But ultimately, she’s still in the same cycle. In ‘Teacher’s Pet’, she witnesses her friend being groomed by a teacher and this idea of unhealthy relationships is reinforced. In ‘High School Sweethearts’, Crybaby is apprehensive. She gives the warning to her love interest that they need to be honest and treat her well. She has been through enough. She doesn’t want any more of her time wasted. It’s a bit of a play with irony on the high school sweetheart trope. This trope is seen as a romantic ideal: the notion of two lovers who met in high school and continue to stay together for a while. This was not Crybaby’s experience at all. She feels robbed of this fantasy. At this point, all she is left with is a prospective lover she is wary of. She misses that idealistic view of love, but that same view rendered her naive and susceptible to abuse. In this song, she calls out the trope for its idealism and unrealistic nature and partly alludes to it as sharing some responsibility for what happened to her. She goes into adulthood carrying this history of abusive family life  and abusive relationships throughout youth that she hasn’t learned to break free from, as well as having low self esteem and struggling to stand up for herself. It’s a recipe for disaster.

Now getting to PORTALS and ‘Death’. This is the opening track. We see in the video that Crybaby is dead. Like I mentioned previously, the death is symbolic rather than literal. Abusive relationships can make you feel like you are dead while still being alive. And the end of the relationship is the death itself. In the video, we see the new Crybaby form rising up. It is tied to her. She finally separates herself for good (or so she thinks). She speaks to the listener and says to not worry. She knows this is still her. Just completely reborn as she’s out of this abusive relationship. She can no longer be her old self. She must shed it to grow and heal and evolve. The old Crybaby is her old unhealed self that endured shitty situations. In this new form, she recounts her final abusive relationship that was so awful it led to an entire transformation. Her old tactics would involve running from a current shitty partner into the arms of another. When doing that, there isn’t a lot of time to process. With PORTALS, she is fully processing a single abusive relationship. After K-12 she got into this abusive relationship. Her foreshadowing of a toxic lover from ‘High School Sweethearts’ has come to fruition.

K-12 was released September 6, 2019. “On September 30th, 2019, Oliver and Melanie posted photos from their upcoming Alternative Press interview together, later confirming they were dating” (from the Wiki). So the time lines up. Also from the wiki: “On May 12, 2021, Melanie posted a story on Instagram confirming that she and Oliver had broken up, but that they are both on good terms”. However later she confirmed the track ‘EVIL’ was about Oliver, meaning that likely the other songs are as well. Melanie says “I think it's because I just had a mental turning point where I was finally able to articulate perfectly what I had dealt with in my last relationship”. Her last relationship was with Oliver.  It’s common for a lot of abuse victims to say they’re on good terms with their abuser because they haven’t fully come to terms with the abuse they experienced, or they feel like their abuser will make their life hell for them if they speak out. When you’re in an abusive relationship, your self esteem becomes way lower. She might have also felt weak, passive, and without a voice (which is why PORTALS is so significant… through this album she found her voice that was lost during her relationship with Oliver). Melanie alludes to this and says she was “finally able to articulate”. She likely struggled with the things I mentioned. It’s hard to articulate when you feel like you don’t have a voice.

Onto the lyrics:

There is whispering with Melanie saying:

“Death is life is death is life is death is life is…” This ties life and death together… Like I said, you may be alive but you feel dead in abusive relationships. This wording repeats during ‘WOMB’, the last track, which shows the cyclical nature of abusive relationships. We can tell this song takes place when the relationship ends because Melanie says:

“They're carving my name in the grave, again

The flowers are fresh and their faces wet”

The relationship has just ended, culminating in the death of Crybaby. Carving the name shows the permanence of the death. It’s ironic for her since everything is sad and in mourning when this is a happy time for her. The time to be sad was in the abusive relationship, but her loved ones don’t know that. As she says in ‘EVIL’, she defended her ex to them. They likely don’t realize what’s going on. Melanie observes their misguided sadness.

The heartbeat noise following signifies her being reborn…

She states:

“My body has died but I'm still alive

Look over your shoulder, I'm back from the dead”

Her old self (body) has died, but she’s more alive than ever in this powerful new form. She had to experience this death (relationship ending) to be freed from her old self. She could’ve never transformed if she stayed as Crybaby. That form was tied to so much trauma and abuse. She had to die to be shed of it all, although the effects linger which is discussed in later songs. This song serves as an empowerment and to clear up any confusion: she is not the old Crybaby anymore. She is completely different now.

She states:

“Lightin' my candles to draw me in

Seeing all the same things, I'm gone this time

Your words mean nothing, so take 'em back”

I believe she is addressing her abusive ex. She is speaking on how he would often try to get her to come back (lightin my candles to draw me in) and although her brain still might see it in a similar way as before through the same eyes, she won’t fall for it this time. In her new form, she is not susceptible to this kind of manipulation and lovebombing anymore. He cannot fool her with words, which she says directly: “your words mean nothing, so take 'em back”. It’s pointless to try to win her back. She is fully changed and unable to be manipulated anymore.

The next lyrics are:

“You aren't around, I sink into the ground

I try to pretend I'm closer to you

Never understand it, you're always on my mind

I cannot help it

I don't wanna be carrying the weight on my shoulders

Death has come to me, kissed me on my cheek, gave me closure

Immortal by design, I'll be meeting you here every time”

He isn’t around anymore because the relationship ended. She feels lost and like she’s sinking. This reference to feeling lost also appears in ‘WOMB’, tying the album together truly as a cycle. It’s common for abuse survivors to feel a loss in identity after their situation ends (as well as during). A lot of energy and effort is put into trying to survive and the victim often takes on their abusers needs and fully focuses on that. They lose their sense of self and when the relationship is over, they have no idea who they were before the abuse or who they are anymore without someone to placate.

There’s still a residual attachment as a result of a trauma bond. She doesn’t understand the attachment because this person abused her and caused her a lot of strife. Yet still part of her is attached. He is always on her mind because she is ruminating and haunted by what he did. She declares a submission that she can’t help it. So much trauma has left her unable to mentally escape, even if her physical form is anew. Her trauma from the relationship is a weight on her shoulders, hence the new form being strong and powerful to withstand it. Her old form would’ve been crushed under the weight, and it likely was. Death takes on the role of an intimate presence, which is on the contrary to how we view death normally. This is likely why Melanie is reassuring when those around her cry. Death is the force that was able to release her from this painful experience. Through death, she is reborn. Death kisses her on the cheek, a gentle act. It’s ironic because death is viewed as a harsh force, but the actual harsh force was her ex lover. So as the reverse goes, death here is gentle. It provides her the closure she wanted from her ex but never got. It’s common for those in abusive relationships to desire closure but rarely does it happen. Death is able to provide this closure by being intimate (making up for what Melanie lacked in the relationship) and freeing her of this past suffering by making her dead, which leads into her resurrection and fully separates her from her old self that is linked to the abuse.

“They're saying my name in their prayers again

I flicker the lights so they understand”

Her friends and loved ones think she’s dead so she tries to give them a sign. She will be back upon her resurrection.

The last words are

“(I'm back)”

She whispers it perhaps to not let her abuser know. She must still build up more strength since she has only been reborn for a little while now. This ‘I’m back’ is the final declaration. With her being back, she can begin to recount the journey of her abusive relationship and what she experienced and how it made her feel. While in her past form, she couldn’t do that. She had to focus wholly on her abuser. Now, she gets to share her feelings, something she couldn’t do with him.

VOID and the crushing emptiness of abuse

The song opens with the repetitive “in the void” (notice the theme of repetition… like I said enforcing the cyclical and repetitive nature of abusive relationships). The void, like the portal, is another symbol for the abusive relationship. This can also be likened to a flashback, since she is going back to when she was still in the void aka the relationship. The words become sped up, which mimics the spinning that is occurring.

She mentions how:

“I'm spinning ’round the corner

It's tasting kind of lonely”

Abusive relationships make you feel out of control, represented here by the spinning (spinning out of control). So do flashbacks. You feel at the mercy of the harsh memories that attack you. The lonely line is because in abusive relationships, you feel excruciatingly isolated and lonely. The void is symbolic of the loneliness that Melanie experienced in the relationship. She felt as if she was in a crushing void that sucked the life and color out of everything, including her. It’s just her in the void by herself, despite being in a relationship. This shows the void is as a result of the relationship and it only affects her and not her partner, since he’s causing it.

Melanie says “And my mind wants to control me”. She is conflating her mind with his voice that’s infiltrated her head. We often identify with our abuser’s voice that gets instilled in our heads by them. We feel worthless, like the problem, terrible and their comments replay in our minds. She doesn’t realize the voice is actually his, because he has made her feel like everything that is happening to her is a result of her own doing.

Next, Melanie says “There's rotten things left in me”. The rotten things are the effects of his trauma on her mind (despite her physical form, her mind still has these thoughts and she’s trying to cope with it… it feels like that trauma is still there and won’t go… despite her physical form shedded, ‘rotten things’ like thoughts and memories linger). She perhaps may be upset because she thought with her new form, there would be no more memories. But the new form didn’t give her a new brain. It remembers.

Coupled with the next lines “Injected by society/ No one here but me to judge me”. She feels as if society reinforces that she is to blame/perpetuates her abuse either by ignoring it, making excuses for her abuser, doesn’t believe her, makes her relieve her trauma, or in general having toxic notions around love that play into reinforcing her situation. She feels judged by society for being in this relationship which is all too common for victims. They often feel pathetic, judged, blamed or misunderstood about their situations, which is part of the reason they keep the abuse to themselves and deal with it on their own. In the void, despite it being horrible, there is no judgment because she’s alone in this. If not for societal judgment, perhaps she could have gotten help out of the void. But she must do it herself, which she asserts later on.

“Pipe down with the noise, I cannot bear my sorrow

I hate who I was before

I fear I won’t live to see the day tomorrow

Someone tell me if this is Hell”

The noise may be referring to both his voice that’s in her head or addressing the society that’s judging her. It also may be her addressing her brain that’s making her experience this flashback. She wants it to pipe down with the flashback, making her feel too much sorrow she can’t bear. Memories of the relationship are too painful to think of. She hates who she was in the relationship, which is common for victims. They often resent themselves for how they feel they let someone control them and put up with a lot of mistreatment. They think it’s their fault and feel disgust often for it. When they think of all they endured, it’s too much. The way they were able to endure so much in the relationship is by being desensitized to what the abuser did as it happened. But as that slowly wears off, she’s realizing how bad it was and the reality of her mistreatment hits her all at once and it makes her sick and unable to bear it.

This line goes into the next, which is her thought process in the relationship. She is worried she won’t survive the void (abusive relationship) and it’s so bad it feels like eternal punishment, which is common for those being abused to feel. In the relationship, they feel like they won’t get through it and the relationship will kill them (emotionally or physically, but I get the sense here it’s more emotional). And then after, hell can also refer to the reality for those with PTSD who are stuck in eternal remembrance of horrible things they have endured even when those things are no longer occurring. It feels like hell: constant torment of flashbacks that there is no escape from. Hell both in and out of the relationship.

The chorus:

“I gotta escape that void

There is no other choice, yeah

Tryna turn off the voices

The void ate me

Look at the mess I've done

There is nowhere to run, yeah

Holding a loaded gun”

This has two meanings: Melanie in the past realizing she must leave the relationship and current Melanie realizing she must overcome the trauma and get out of the flashback. This entire album creates a dialogue between Melanie’s past and Mealnie’s present and the chorus shows that. You can view the chorus either through the lens of her past abusive relationship she is speaking about as well as her current state, or like I said, them both at once.

Her saying there is no other choice is her knowing this relationship will kill her and that she needs to leave. She can’t stay in this relationship that is killing her more and more everyday. Yet the voice of her abuser is in her head convincing her to stay and filling her with self doubt so she doesn’t leave. “The void ate me” shows how consumed she is emotionally by the state the relationship has left her in. “Look at the mess I’ve done” is her self-gaslighting. When you’ve been gaslit so much, you start doing it to yourself. Here, she is blaming herself for being in the void despite the fact that it is not her fault. The manipulation of her ex got her here, and yet she blames herself as if she chose this twisted and oppressive reality.

“​​Like a priest behind confession walls, I judge myself

Kneeling on a metal grater

Bloody, like a body that has died, and it's myself

Tangled in my own intestines”

Melanie is judging herself like society does to her. She has internalized this judgment, which leads to shame (once again, very common to abuse victims). The imagery of kneeling on a metal grater is visceral. It feels raw in the way when you’re in abusive situations, you feel raw, pained, and vulnerable. The second verse is her new form realizing her past self is dead. She may feel the need to punish herself for getting into the relationship. She feels like it’s her fault, rather than realizing she was manipulated by her abuser. The body line is referencing her in flashback looking back and realizing how the relationship killed her. She is having an out of body experience where she sees herself dead in the third person, which we can see backed up by the music video for ‘DEATH’.

“I'm tryna find a doorway

My eyes are staring at me

And they seem so damn unhappy”

Melanie is judging herself for trying to leave as well judging herself for putting up with the abuse. She’s trying to find a way out, but the judgment is hindering her. At this moment, she may realize for the first time how unhappy she is. The unhappiness many victims feel is suppressed or repressed as a result of not being allowed to have emotions in the relationship. Now that she’s coming to terms with needing to leave, her emotions she has suppressed/repressed are emerging and she notices it visibly.

“Alchemize the dark within me-ee (Ah)”. Alchemizing has to do with transforming the properties of something through a magical process. She wants to transform this darkness into light through her new magical form (which she accomplishes later on).

Melanie sees the darkness as within her, but she doesn’t realize her abusive situation is what’s creating the darkness completely. She is a bright and lively person, but she’s been blaming herself for what her abuser is doing subconsciously. Everything is her fault, like the previous line of “Look at the mess I've done”. She thinks it is her mess. Her darkness. It is neither.

After this, previous verses repeat. Showing her struggle in finding the exit to escape this situation both literally and emotionally. Victims find it hard to leave, which is perpetrated by their lowered self esteem, self doubt, internalized judgment. You can hear Melanie’s self-loathing in how she sings the lyrics. Tinges of disgust are heard in her voice. Notice how nothing is directed towards her abuser. This is common in especially first stages. There is a lot of frustration directed towards oneself for staying, putting up with it, and feeling like you did this to yourself. There are so many voices outside and inside your head telling you what to do and you don’t know who to listen to. This song is a representation of Melanie blaming herself for her abuse and her struggles to leave. This new form didn’t come with ease. She had to fight for it and she had to fight to escape the void.

TUNNEL VISION and love bombing

Love Bombing is one of the early phases in an abusive relationship, although it occurs all throughout the cycle of abuse. It is how abusers get their victims attached through intense affections and efforts to win them over. Tunnel vision as a term means medically: “peripheral vision loss. It makes it hard or impossible to see objects that aren’t directly in front of you. It can be temporary, but it might also permanently change your vision depending on what causes it” (https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/24435-tunnel-vision-peripheral-vision-loss). In a more conversational sense, it means “defective sight in which objects cannot be properly seen if not close to the center of the field of view” (google definition). We will use both of these definitions.

The first one mentions a periphery loss that makes it hard or impossible to see objects not directly in front of you. In the context of this song, Melanie can only see the abusive partner. She can’t see outside opinions which would tell her he’s abusive. All she can see is the object of her affection which she loves. She can’t see the full picture of his behavior. The timeframe of permanent or temporary is interesting to note. In the instance of Melanie you could argue for either. Permanent because while she was Crybaby, she experienced it up until her death. Temporary because she was reborn and eventually made it out of that as her new form.

As far as the latter definition, her sight is defective because she has lost sight of reality as a result of the manipulation she is experiencing. She can’t see the truth of her situation, and that is a result of Love Bombing.

There is a dreamy and whimsical tone as Melanie opens the song and sings:

“Follow the tunnel into the portal

Lay all your burdens to rest

Drink from the fountain, death's holy water

Watch as you're put to the test”

Love Bombing feels like a dream which is expressed through her tone. Her ex likely told her sweet lies like this “lay all your burdens to rest”. This seemed sweet, but was done to get her to lower her defenses so he could manipulate her. But as with most things in this album, there is a dual meaning. The portal can represent Melanie gaining knowledge once she's out of the abusive portal of the truth of her situation aka the subsiding of her tunnel vision.

The pre chorus says:

“Eyes on the prize, thought the cherry would be

Better than the pie, you like that, like that, that, like that

That's your demise

Yeah, you hold me like you're rushing to my thighs

Too fast, too fast, fast, too fast”

This is the love bombing to use Melanie for ulterior motives (in this case sexual). Like how love bombing is, Melanie remarks “too fast”. Love Bombing occurs at a forced rate that is way faster than how intimacy should be developing. Sometimes during love bombing, victims can sense something is off but dismiss it. Melanie does this as a result of her tunnel vision, partly blinded to what’s going on. However, she can see how his holding is underlied by him rushing to her thighs. Yet she allows it anyways out of thinking maybe she’s just seeing things (self doubt) or allowing it to get the intimacy she desires.

“But your focus is empty

Tunnel vision, thеn dead me

Honeysucklе and fresh meat

But I'm more than that, more than that

Playing house to distract me

But you're no good at acting

Obvious what you're after

And I'm more than that, more than that

And I'm more than that, more than that”

In an interesting turn, Melanie turns the title around on her ex lover. When she describes him as having tunnel vision, she means he is solely focused on using her for a sexual purpose. He is not viewing her as a fully realized person he sees a future with, despite him trying to make her think that so she gives him what he wants. His tunnel vision leads to her death (his manipulation, ulterior motives, and love Bombing). If not for his love Bombing, she wouldn’t have gotten sucked into his web (more on that later). “Playing house to distract me” is a good representation of love bombing. Abusers often do something known as future faking. Future faking involves detailed visions of the future the abuser describes to get the victim invested and create an intense connection. It gives the victim a sense of security that they will have a future with this person whom they can rely on and also makes the victim feel like the abuser wants a serious relationship when they never truly intend on following through.

Both Melanie and her abuser have tunnel vision, but in different ways. Melanie has tunnel vision as a result of being love bombed and believing in the future they have. Her abuser meanwhile only sees her for a set sexual purpose and his tunnel vision is about seeing her for this sole purpose, which contributes to her death.

This song is another duality: describing the love bombing in the relationship as well as Melanie reflecting on it with gained knowledge, which is how she’s able to add insights such as “I saw that trick fall out your sleeve/ and I'm so certain/

You hum a tune I don't believe and it ain't workin'”. After gaining the knowledge and being out of the portal, she won’t fall for it. She knows when words seem empty and false.

In the outro to the song, Melanie sings:

“Crossing my heart, I'd rather die (Oh-oh, oh-oh)

Than be the needle in your eye (Oh-oh, oh-oh)

Show me how far obsession goes (Oh-oh, oh-oh)

Could've been more, now we'll never know”

She doesn’t want to be used for this purpose to the point she would rather accept death. This is common in abusive relationships. People experience suicidal thoughts because they don’t feel like they will make it out of the relationshi and the way abusers make their victims feel used and worthless contributes to a crushing sense of low self esteem. Melanie is very impacted by his tunnel vision. Where was the future and nice things he said to her? She’s beginning to realize the inauthentic nature of his words despite her own tunnel vision. This song represents the tunnel vision wearing off, as she’s able to realize the false narrative she was promised. Yet in the closing lines, she wishes to be obsessed over. That’s what she always wanted: devotion. Not something false and shallow which she is being used for. This harkens back to ‘High School Sweethearts’, where she warns a lover of taking advantage of her: self-fulfilling prophecy. The crushing realization that she experienced her wariness is perhaps what makes her tunnel vision fade. In the High School Sweetheart trope, the two young lovers do have a bit of tunnel vision towards each other, but usually with that trope it’s in a sweet way. This song is an inversion which shows the dangerous alternative version of that trope when applied to an abusive relationship.

FAERIE SOIREE and the illusion of fantasy

This song takes place when Melanie is in the relationship and to mentally escape from the torment, she has a fantasy where she’s a manipulative fairy in control. It’s a revenge fantasy against her abuser. One she can’t enact. But she also can’t leave at this point, so she’s relegated to the fantasy world in her head. To achieve this fantasy, it appears that she has taken hallucinogens. Those in abusive relationships often cope in unhealthy ways, which oftentimes happens to be with substances.

“The blue stars running down my forehead

Cold wings flutter when they're moving

Mushrooms everywhere I’m turning

Laced with love, intensive grooving”

‘Blue stars’, ‘cold wings’, ‘mushrooms’, ‘laced with love’, ‘intense grooving’ are references to the hallucinogenic experience. The song sounds airy and light, indicating Melanie’s light state which is enhanced by drugs. For her, a state of suffering has been transformed to love: something she lacks from her abuser. Since she was love deprived, this makes the emotions within her even stronger. This transformation mirrors the personal one she will undergo later as she goes from Crybaby to her new form.

Verse one:

“I know how to make you go crazy every day

Ooh-ah, ooh-ah (Ah)

Tease your mind and trick you, you really wanna stay

Ooh-ah, ooh-ah (Ah)”

In her fantasy state, she is the one in control. She’s the one making him go crazy, teasing him, tricking him, and making him want to stay. In her relationship, it is the other way around. But in this fantasy, she can reverse the roles. This makes her feel empowered and he revels in this idea. She doesn’t appear ashamed of her fantasy like she’s expressed in previous songs. The line “you really wanna stay” alludes to him not seeming like he truly wants to be with her. She may feel abandoned and neglected, which makes sense since Crybaby seems to have abandonment issues. He’s triggered her abandonment issues.

“I know a way to make you lose your pace

Your trace, your trace

If you wanna run with the magic

Lose sight of the gravity of weight”

Melanie is realizing it’s possible to be liberated. But to do so, she cannot be tied to reality. In her reality, she is experiencing abuse. In this altered state, however, it’s possible for her to experience magic. “Lips of sugar, I'm breathing the pheromones again” is the next line and in this fantasy, Melanie is attractive to her partner. Abusive relationships often make the victim feel undesirable. He no longer makes her feel attractive or acts attracted to her (which happens in abusive relationships to tear down the esteem of the victim). In this fantasy world created by her altered drug state, she is the embodiment of sex, as alluded to by the ‘pheromone’ comment. Pheromones are the physical epitome of sexual attraction. She is in control of her desirability which she feels have lost throughout the relationship. It’s likely that the relationship is sexually on the abuser’s terms, which commonly is the case. Here, like with the other elements, is another thing once again regained under her control in this fantasy.

The chorus says:

“Led me astray to the faerie soirée

Alone, alone

And now I wanna run with the magic

Lose sight of the gravity of home”

Faerie soirée infers a gathering of people who are liberated and can show her the truth, or other victims of abuse. Together, they create a bond and connection that is magical (such as a support group). Before this in ‘DEATH’, loneliness was negative. Here, it has a positive connotation. Melanie has arrived to this soirée alone (led astray as a result of her need to escape her reality) and now that she’s been liberated as a result of connecting with these other liberated victims who have gained back control, she wants to stay in this realm. Being alone is better than the ‘company’ of her abuser, which is true to the experience of the victim. They feel more alone dating someone toxic than if they were single.

Outro:

“Somewhere on Venus, they're searching for me

While I'm covered in muck from the earth and the sea

Scratching this carcass like dogs with the fleas

I keep leaning to dying in all of my dreams”

The outro is speaking to how people are looking for her in the wrong places. Venus is magical and otherworldly. And although she feels like she’s in another world due to this state she’s in, she isn’t. She’s still on earth covered in ‘muck’ aka the abusive relationship. The line “I keep leaning to dying in all of my dreams”. In reality, she’s in this awful situation and she thinks in dreams she can escape it. Dreams, like this altered drug state, are both escapes. Although in dreams, it seems more negatively escapist (death). But since death has a positive connotation in this album, it can mean she’s dreaming of being reborn and escaping the relationship, or in the normal sense like I mentioned prior on how those abused have suicidal thoughts and want to die to escape the relationship. In both contexts (drugs and dreams), she desires an escape. Escape is one of the means victims use to cope with their harsh reality.

LIGHT SHOWER and the hope of post-abuse life

The main symbols in this song revolve around water and cleansing. Water sounds are overlaid, as well as the frequent references to water in the song. This is a song concerned with Melanie’s future relationship. The one that comes after her abuser. Melanie is in a current relationship with a man named Verde, who happens to be a water sign. This can make the connection that the song is about him. It is a gentle and sweet love song, a tonal switch from the previous songs.

“You are the light, I've been searchin' for forever

Feels like, man, I've really never felt the rain

Buried in the desert, didn't think I'd push through the dirt

You just cleansed me like a waterfall, you came”

Melanie has been searching for a healthy relationship since her days on Crybaby. Her string of toxic lovers prevented her from this reality. “I’ve never felt the rain” is her affirmation that she’s never been in a healthy relationship. The desert is her love life, which has drained her and left her depleted. Yet her new lover comes in to cleanse her of these past traumatic relationships. The jump from never feeling rain to a waterfall shows how drastic and overwhelmingly positive he is for her. The reference to a light can be an allusion to ‘TUNNEL VISION’ since ‘seeing the light’ is a phrase associated with tunnels. In ‘TUNNEL VISION’, she was seeing the light of knowledge but now with no tunnel vision (and this new knowledge), she is able to find the true light in the form of a genuine partner. One that isn’t abuse masquerading as love.

“I'm screamin' like a kettle on a stove

You cranked the heat up, I was cold

My past grew mold around my heart

And all my anger, sadness, regret, disappeared, it's madness

I'm not used to all this watеr, love, it's true”

Melanie is having struggles from the PTSD of her last relationship. Her screaming comes from a flashback or a trigger which sets her off. Her lover helps her in this state. He sees through her screaming and realizes what she needs (the heat to be turned up). Unlike her ex, he fulfills her needs and does things for her. Rather than the one-sided relationship she experienced with her ex.

Melanie is acknowledging what her past did to her through the mold line. Abusive relationships often distort and taint the victim’s future ideas of love. Her past relationship led to anger (at her mistreatment and at him for treating her that way), sadness (for herself in the way she was treated), regret (for staying and putting up with it). Yet with this true love, her negative emotions subside. The water (his love) helps to repair the damage. She’s shocked when his love takes her pain away. She’s used to ‘love’ doing the opposite and causing her suffering. She once again states that she is not used to it. The repetition of this shows her baffled state. She might even expect this love to be false again based on her history. She is also trying to explain to her lover why she may have certain reactions. She’s not used to being treated this way and her brain must adjust. Often the ways she will act are a result of conditioning from the instances of abuse.

“I was surprised to see heaven in your eyes

I never once was treated right, you're what I'm missing in my life

As bright as the sun, give me your vitamin D

Let's run into another dimension

You make me feel like I'm on drugs” 

Melanie is surprised because like she says “I was never once treated right”. Her lover feels as bright as a sun, a contrast from the dark grimy forest aesthetics of PORTALS which is associated with her ex. Keeping in mind that Melanie is in this new creature form (which in this context represents how she changed due to abuse), her new lover accepts and loves her as she is. She doesn’t have to be something else and it’s okay that she has been altered. He doesn’t view her as broken. You can hear Melanie’s gentle vulnerability in her singing. She is able to be vulnerable with her new partner, something she wasn’t able to experience with her ex. The reference to heaven is a contrast to the hell she references in ‘VOID’ at the hands of her abuser. Her new partner is eternal bliss while her ex is eternal suffering.

The running into another dimension and drugs lines are references to ‘FAERIE SOIREE’. In that song, she was in another dimension mentally. Here, I believe it signifies her distrust still despite a good partner. Although she is hopeful, there is lingering doubt. If she can bring him into this other magical dimension, things will remain perfect and he won’t switch up like the others. She wants to preserve the relationship and not let it be tainted by outside forces. Her protective urges are acting up, a sign of trauma hypervigilance. The drugs line is her saying that he makes her feel like the drugs did in ‘FAERIE SOIREE’: loved, desired, and connected. Yet she doesn’t have to escape reality to experience this magical state of love.

“The tips of your teeth fit perfect in me”

This shows the impact of her abusive relationship even further. Even with her healthy lover, she is seeing how easily he could destroy her. He wouldn’t, based on the lyrics, but she still has these fears based on how her abusive ex did his best to tear her apart.

But this isn’t where the album ends. This is future Melanie. We must return into the madness of her abusive relationship before she reaches this future. She can’t achieve this healthy relationship until she leaves the abusive one and she hasn’t left yet. We also cannot ignore the significance of this song being listed right after ‘FAERIE SOIREE’. ‘LIGHT SHOWER’ represents her future as well as a dream she has in an abusive relationship where she’s with a partner that loves and respects her. This future/dream/hope keeps her fighting and going despite wanting to give up. Victims often imagine their ideal lives with good partners or even dream about it. Dreams give them the love they are lacking. Verde is her hope to one day be treated right.

SPIDER WEB and the web of manipulation

We have returned to the relationship and out of Melanie’s two fantasies: one in her head in a dream as she’s unconscious (‘LIGHT SHOWER’) where she has a healthy lover and one induced by drugs where she's in control and liberated from her abuse (‘FAERIE SOIREE’). Back to her cruel reality, we meet the spider and his web. The spider is a representation of abusers. Spiders are a common symbol used to invoke fear, and this shows Melanie’s fear of her abuser. The beat of the song mimics a spider crawling, allowing us into Melanie’s point of view as she hears the spider moving around but not sure where he is. This creates an ever present sense of fear. She must anticipate his attack at any point (mirroring how abuse victims remain on guard for their abuser’s next incident)

Why ‘SPIDER WEB’ and not ‘SPIDER’? I believe the reason is because Melanie wants to focus on this network of manipulation and lies that is spun rather than the person themselves. The spider web is what keeps her trapped. Yes the abuser is the one that spins it, but the web of sustained manipulation keeps her trapped. In a way, it takes some of the power away from the abuser which is an issue in narratives of abuse. People mistakenly see abusers as super villains, but often they are average people as common as the average house spider. I think Melanie also wants to focus on how the spider affects her and his tactics rather than himself as a being.

“I move like a moth or a butterfly

Craving a change in the wind

I swirl by all the insects and all the flies

Watching the cycle they're in”

Melanie compares herself to a moth or butterfly. Butterflies are beautiful, vulnerable, and fragile creatures. She sees herself in this way: vulnerable to manipulation and abuse based on her extensive history. She sees others who have been caught up in abuse, yet can’t stop herself. Perhaps she craves a change because she had a break from abuse, and her brain is conditioned to that chaos. Going with the moth comparison, she can be seen as a moth drawn to a flame. Moths are drawn to the things that destroy them. Melanie later on calls the center aka the flame a gift, which enforces the idea that this is what’s going on. She is drawn to this allusion and it kills her.

Seeing the insects and flies in a cycle refers to the cycle of abuse. Perhaps she naively thinks she can evade the abuse cycle because somehow she knows better based on her past. But she doesn’t. She gets swept up in the worst relationship she’s been in thus far. The coding of the other victims as insects and flies shows what happens to them once they have been entrapped in this cycle. They turn from beautiful, free butterflies and moths to trapped, powerless nameless insects and flies. ‘Insects’ is important because abuse often renders victims as a monolith of ‘victims’: people who have been abused as a mass without names. A number. A total (think the #METOO movement… it becomes about the number rather than each individual victim) Just like in the spider's web. The specific insects aren’t mentioned. Just the mass of insects (victims). Their status has been degraded as the spider’s prey.

“Better off dead than wastin' my hours

Flying where I shouldn't be

Flexing like pricks with their stolen power

They're just who the spider will eat”

She knows she shouldn’t be flying near the spider. She, once again, naively feels like she can evade the spider. She believes she has the victim archetype nailed. She thinks she knows who the spider will eat. But the spider will eat anyone it can manipulate, and unfortunately she is in this class based on her history.

The chorus is a powerful force:

“Spinning all your silk and moving all of your eight legs

To build a web that'll spread through the world

Feeding off our highs and lows

And curious to see us struggle

No one can leave once they merge”

This is the spider performing his manipulative tactics. Abusers like seeing people struggle. The web in question can also mean it is the network of lies they create by getting people on their side by crafting false narratives. When the spider spins silk, it crafts these false narratives while further abusing the victim. Abusers especially feed off the lows they create in their victims. It gives them power. As for highs, they live to tear victims down from any highs they feel. “No one can leave once they merge” is the trauma bond that occurs between victim and abuser. A trauma bond forms when “an abuser uses manipulation tactics and cycles of abuse to make the victim feel dependent on them for care and validation, causing a strong attachment or bond” (https://www.choosingtherapy.com/stages-of-trauma-bonding/). So once the victim is trauma bonded to the abuser, it’s near impossible to leave, as shown by no one being able to leave once they merge. Melanie is going against the common faulty line of logic abuse victims are met with when in abusive relationships: why don’t you just leave? Just leave. They don’t understand the trauma bond. This can be her speaking against judgemental society that’s shamed her over her reactions and how she navigated her abusive relationship. The same judgemental society she references in ‘VOID’ and ‘CONTORTIONIST’ to name a few.

“I'm hiding myself from the enemy

I wish to not be perceived

Didn't ask for this dangerous visibility

I'm feeling too scared to sleep”

Melanie is in the spider web. She is trying to hide in it. She doesn’t want to be perceived because that means the spider will eat her (aka abuse her). She “didn’t ask for this dangerous visibility” meaning she didn’t ask to be a target for abuse. She has been through so much abuse that people like this are often targets for future abusers. Her past has made her dangerously visible. She mentions being too scared to sleep. The spider is unpredictable, as abusers often are. She doesn’t know what she’ll wake up to or when the spider will attack. The constant state of anxiety and waiting for the other shoe to drop is common in abusive relationships.

“Better off dead than stuck in a maze

The center may seem like a gift

Once you arrive, it'll strip you of your life

And you'll wish that you never did”

Once again, Melanie asserts death as a better alternative than dealing with the abusive relationship. Death is the ultimate escape which she is eventually granted. The spider web is referred to as a maze because of the pattern spider webs are, but also because abusers play mind tricks with victims which creates a disorienting effect like mazes. When she talks about the center being a gift, she is referring to when she believed in the future faking and lies of the abuser (‘TUNNEL VISION’). He seemed like a gift. Yet, he drained her of life. This ties back to the emptiness of ‘VOID’. She regrets having met him and been drawn in by him.

“Big bite, they liquify the insides first

Then wrap them tight, securing their spot in the spider web

Up all night, bound to their addiction to it

Lifeless eyes, they die in the pit of the spider web”

Victims are wrapped up in this cycle. The trauma bond makes them addicted to the highs and lows of the relationship. They are kept up all night (those in abusive relationships often experience a lack of sleep or insomnia) and they ‘die’ and never escape the abuser. Liquifying the insides refers to how abusers often damage victims from the inside out to wear them down psychologically so victims obey them and surrender control.

The spider is a manipulative abuser who dualistically works on eating his victims while maintaining a network of lies that ensnares more victims and allies on his side. Because of the network of manipulation, others doubt when victims speak up. “But he’s nice to me.” “But he seems like a good guy.” Those who speak out are often met with these phrases. These people don’t realize they’re apart of the web too. They have fallen for his lies. They are ignoring the piles of bodies with lifeless eyes ensnared in the web in favor of believing the lies of the spider.

LEECHES and Narcissism

LEECHES happens to be another metaphor for the abuser.

“Leeches surrounded, conscience is throbbing

They can't sleep at night, hold their pillows tight

Caught in the river of tears that I cried

Bountiful harvest, they flock to my garden

Push their way inside, I go run and hide

They lift all the covers, pull me into their sight”

Melanie is surrounded by abusers: her past of poor relationship partners, potential future abusers, and her current abuser. She has experienced so much abuse that she feels surrounded on all fronts. The leeches (aka abusers) feign like they feel bad (can’t sleep at night and holding pillows tight). Yet they are in the position they are in as a result of making Melanie upset and distressed (river of tears that I cried). But they aren’t focused on that. Rather, they are focused on their own pain (not being able to sleep). Bountiful harvest and garden shows that Melanie is a person of abundance and the leeches want to drain this from her because they lack it themselves. Once again, the target on her we have previously discussed makes the leeches seek her out. They push themselves inside. Not entering with permission, but rather forcefully. No respect for Melanie’s boundaries. She tried to hide yet they won’t stop until they find her and ensnare her.

The leeches in this song are a specific type of abuser. One that is a narcissist. In her quote we discussed in an earlier song, she said “Flowed really easily and effortlessly. I think it's because I just had a mental turning point where I was finally able to articulate perfectly what I had dealt with in my last relationship. I wanted the lyrics to be the most savage and the most cunty. Every time I wrote something I was like 'no, it's not mean enough'. It's about dealing with a narcissist who ironically calls you evil just because you're able to see through their bullshit.” She confirms that her ex is a narcissist, allowing us to make this final connection that ‘LEECHES’ is about narcissists.

Within this first verse, narcissists frequently feign guilt when they don’t really feel bad. They are self centered and focus on their own reactions, rather than the pain they’re causing others. They also tend to cause empathetic people like Melanie to cry and be in distress a lot. They don’t respect boundaries and forcibly try to get their way. Commonly, they target either vulnerable people that are “easy” to manipulate/take advantage of, and bright people they seek to dim to make themselves feel better about themselves. Melanie is both.

“Slimy and superficial

Straining their artificial

Yapping to seem official

Making it beneficial to their cause”

Narcissists are superficial and slimy. They are quite shallow, and talk a big game but can’t back it up. And whenever they speak it, it’s for their own benefit and cause. These benefits are to: manipulate, get their way, and get others on their side. Their actions don’t align with their words. As we saw in the previous verse, they act like they are guilty. Yet we can see they truly aren’t by their continual manipulation and working for their own benefit which is often at the detriment to others around them.

“How much blood can you draw with your claws

From a flesh that's not yours?

My hands aren't yours and

Gnaw on my bones, no marrow

Left to keep you enthralled

I guess that is the luck of the draw, ah-ah-ah-ah-ah”

Claws are the hurtful actions and words of the narcissist. Their actions/words are cruel and painful to those they inflict them on. Flesh that’s not yours refers to Melanie, her saying that he is specifically hurting her. She goes on to say how the leeches gnaw on her bones. In ‘TUNNEL VISION’, we had references to Melanie being used for her body (sexually). Here, she is being used for her body’s physical state to provide nourishment for the leech. Narcissists feed on how they destroy others and this is no exception. With how much trauma is related to her physical being (for sexual reasons, and now for food… both of which are dehumanizing that turn Melanie into a means to an end for someone else’s benefit), it makes sense she had to get a new form and shed her old one. So much trauma has been wrapped up in the physical form. And with the appearance of her new form, it makes it hard for others to take advantage of her sexually and for food, since they would be put off by her appearance as the creature and not in her typical woman form as Crybaby. Her not being conventionally attractive is a defense mechanism. Despite her being naked nearly, she is less likely to be taken advantage of as when compared to Crybaby being fully clothed. In a way, it seems like she blames her physical appearance for the abuse she’s experienced. So in her mind, shedding her physical form is the only solution to remedy that, in addition to the other reasons previously discussed.

“Keep you enthralled” is the abuser being amused by the suffering he causes. In a way, she is too wrapped up in the trauma bond and lets him feast on here and destroy her. The “luck of the draw” line shows her admittance of defeat. She feels like her luck with love is poor and this is her shitty luck: to end up with leech after leech. Her life force is being drained. You can tell by the hopelessness in her word choice. She lets the leech feast. She questions how much blood he can draw (how much destruction he can cause because it seems endless and like he won’t stop till he has consumed her whole) but she doesn’t push back anymore like she did at the start of the song where she hid. PORTALS is exploring different trauma responses: fight, flight, freeze, etc. And yet none of them yield results. The only thing that does is to remove yourself from the situation entirely.

As a side note, she is likely naked on the album cover because it represents her being vulnerable after her abusive relationship. On the vinyl, she is splayed out in a similar manner to Angelita during ‘Teacher’s Pet’. During that song, Angelita was taken advantage of like Melanie during PORTALS. Being splayed out naked represents how both women felt sexually taken advantage of: their bodies on display representing what these men did to them. They feel violated. Watching the vinyl spin, you can’t help but feel violated in watching Melanie exposed and spinning. She is being exploited like she was with her abuser. She has wings, imagining herself as the butterfly/moth from ‘SPIDER WEB’. It’s as if this is a pictorial representation of her being trapped in the spider web. It begs the question: are taking a part in her exploitation by purchasing her record? Are we letting her stay trapped there; her wings pinned to the sticky web and not questioning further? Are we so blinded by aesthetics that we can’t see the dark reality in front of us? Just like Melanie in ‘TUNNEL VISION’?

“Let all their friends in, the enemy's present

They don't think too hard 'bout your fragile heart

They eat off the table that you set, so you starve

Stop all your breathing (Huh)

No, don't let them see you

They find any way just to make you stay

Right where they want you in their piss-covered games”

Narcissists often recruit their awful allies in on abusing the victim by harassing the victim or helping the narcissist further their smear campaign. They are the enemy Melanie is referring to. Narcissists don’t think about how they’re affecting you (“They don't think too hard 'bout your fragile heart”). “Fragile heart”  meaning Melanie is a sensitive person. “They eat off the table that you set, so you starve” means you do all of the work in the relationship and make all of the effort while all they do is drain you. It’s an eternal give-take relationship in the extremest sense. You starve while they indulgently consume you until you’re a shell like you are in ‘VOID’. By ‘LEECHES’, we can see exactly how Melanie ended up in the void.

She mentions stopping breathing because any little thing is cause for a narcissist to be set off. Also, if she feigns as if she’s stopped breathing, the leech will stop eating and move to another alive victim. This foreshadows her leaving the relationship later. She says to not let them see you because they will find a way to make you stay. Narcissists use an array of manipulation tactics to make their victims stay, such as recurrent suicide threats, empty promises that they will improve, or convincing their victim that the victim is actually the abuser or problem (DARVO). It’s hard to leave a relationship if you’re being gaslit and you think you’re the problem and they’ve robbed you of your entire self esteem. Why would you leave? No one else will love you. No one is going to want someone so broken and worthless. Might as well stay. It’s better than the alternative. The song is lethargic sounding, but intense. which matches how Melanie is feeling at this point. She’s hopeless in stopping the leeches. They are everywhere: her past, her present, and her future. Her fate is to be eaten by these leeches. But part of her is screaming to be released from this. The intensity rises to a crescendo but never drops. This reflects on the constant anxiety of victims towards their abuser. This song culminates in yelling. Despite letting him feast, he still lashes out. Nothing is good enough for him. He will take all from her and still demand more from her depleted carcass. Narcissists don’t want their victims to stay out of love, a misconception. They want the control and to be apart of their fucked up games, which has made Melanie so degraded and disgusted she likens it to being piss-covered.

‘LEECHES’ describes the draining experience with a narcissistic abuser. One that renders the victim weak and unable to fight back. They begin to accept even worse things than before. Their threshold becomes lowered which leads to horrific abuse hard to put into words. However, this is the climax (ironic since it’s taking place at her lowest point). From here out, she begins to find her voice and speak up. The end of ‘LEECHES’ is distant yelling and hitting. It seems as if Melanie has evaded the leech at last, or is beginning to withdraw and start to fight back. The leech is angry, perhaps finding out she has discovered the truth of the situation and is breaking free of his control. All he can do is a typical narcissist tactic of lashing out, yelling, and desperately trying to hold the power he’s had.

BATTLE OF THE LARYNX and using your voice

This is one of the first songs Melanie directly addresses her abuser and calls him out for what he’s done. This song is specifically aimed at him as a response to him, while the other songs were more of internal recounts on what she endured.

“Falling asleep by the arcade

Liquor it jumps off your tongue

You used all your words for a quick game

Blew it all before you won

I speak in cursive, I'm poignant, assertive

There's musical chairs in my teeth

Poke me to battle, I'll jump on the saddle

I'll smile as you fall to your feet”

We learn more details about her ex: he is likely an angry drunk and this reminds Melanie of her mother. Her ex becomes careless when he’s drunk, in contrast to her. He “used his words for a quick game and blew it before [he] won”, meanwhile she is poignant and assertive. She’s starting to regain some of her worth as she realizes how uncouth he is. She says sure, he can goad her into battle with his pathetic words and she knows she can reign supreme, but she will win as he stumbles because he cannot keep up with her. She used to see herself as lower than him, but revelations are occurring.

“And they talk without thinking

They bark while they're shaking

With teeth that are round and dull

And they yell while they're chasing

While I'm steady pacing

My syllables hit the floor”

Her ex talks without thinking. He “barks” (showing his savage nature). She no longer sees his teeth as sharp and scary. Rather, dull. He’s an uncivilized animal who is losing his power over her. He must rely on yelling that at once scared her, but now she’s put together and composed. He is losing his control on her, which makes him lash out more. She is desensitized to his behavior after having dealt with it for so long. She uses her vocal range for beautiful expression while he uses his for brute force and abuse.

“How stupid, selfish baby

Don't you battle with my larynx tonight

I'll wreck you if you chase me

But I'll be silent 'til you cross the line

The line, the line

Don't you battle with my larynx tonight

So crude and selfish baby

Don't you battle with my larynx tonight”

He selfishly wants to battle with her. Everything he does is selfish and for his gain. She doesn’t like arguing yet he keeps doing it. She realizes how stupid this is. She is prepared and poised. She demeans and infantilizes him by calling him baby, a word that earlier held endearment. The larynx holds the vocal cords, a direct link to their arguing since she uses her voice for arguments. She is telling him not to foolishly fight against her in his sorry drunk state. I like to think of it as her being fed up with the constant arguing and telling him not to engage because she won’t placate him like normal.

She is not on the offensive yet, rather the defensive. She warns him that she will wreck him if he chases her (in terms of the argument), reminding me once again of ‘High School Sweethearts’ with her warning in that song. Melanie says she will be silent, but if he dares cross her, she will speak up. Since she has been silenced for the relationship, her finding her voice through her larynx is powerful. Since the larynx is a part of the physical body, she is starting to reclaim some of the power her abuser took by damaging her physical form. She is realizing that something that was the source of trauma can be a source of empowerment.

“Call all your guys in the dive bar

They'll give you the validation

Your daddy could never bestow you

While bloody, they'll tell you you've won”

Melanie is calling out his daddy issues and mentioning that because his father never validated him, perhaps this plays into the abusive man he is today. Since he has no father figure, the abuser must rely on his friends to validate him that he won despite being bloody (a clear indication of his loss). This is representative of how narcissists try to often rework the narrative to make themselves like the winners. They often tell narratives in a way that suits themselves and gets people to take their side (people often referred to as flying monkeys within the framework of narcissistic abuse: people who enable the narcissist and even help them in their abuse).

With this song, we experience another tonal shift. The song is triumphant sounding. Melanie’s voice isn’t quiet and breathy like in other songs. You can sense her gained power by how she states her words clearly (a tie in to how she says she speaks in cursive and is poignant and assertive). Her words match her actions, unlike her abuser. You can hear some cheekiness in the song with how she taunts her abuser. Finding your voice is one of the key ways to begin to break out of abuse. You lose your voice to your abuser and their voice replaces yours. Melanie is finding her voice again, hence her warning to not battle with her larynx. Before, her larynx was unused, But now, she’s not afraid to use it since she’s found it again after a while.

The end of the song is a bunch of distant talking in what sounds like a dinner party. There is a gasp which then transitions to the next song. The talking represents society judging her and talking about her in reference to the relationship: rumors, victim blaming, judgment, name calling her, etc. I think it also represents the people the abuser is telling things to. He spreads lies and gossip about Melanie to discredit her so people don’t believe her or take her seriously. It’s the smear campaign narcissists run on their victim. Since Melanie is breaking free of his control in this song, he must seek outside forces to try to maintain his control by ruining her reputation and credibility.

THE CONTORTIONIST and twisting yourself into what your abuser wants

The chatter from the last song carries over into the start of this one. The smear campaign is fully underway. Melanie says “Twisted all my limbs for you”. She’s here to offer a counter-narrative to what he’s spreading to set the record straight. Despite what he’s saying, she's twisting herself for him to the point of uncomfortability.

“Ribbons tied around like a noose

Wonder if I'll ever get it loose

I don't wanna bruise for you

Holding back my words until my face is blue (Huh)

I don't really care about your crew

You can tell 'em what you wanted to”

Ribbons are soft and feminine. They have been a part of Crybaby’s aesthetic during Crybaby and K-12. However that version of her (that was in the abusive relationship) is being used against her and turned into a noose to choke her and restrict her words. Melanie may feel, like I previously mentioned, that she is partly to blame for her abuse. Victims often blame themselves. Her image is being used against her. Also, she’s doing it to herself in a way. She is silencing herself because she feels she has to for her abuser’s sake. She doesn’t feel like she’ll get the noose undone. She doesn’t speak to the point she is suffocating. She feels like she’ll be forever silenced (made even worse by the smear campaign he’s running). Keeping the noose around her neck silences her and she’s acknowledging the damage it does (leaving bruises). This is the trauma he’s given her. She holds back her words constantly because if she speaks out 1) it’ll create conflict 2) he will abuse her worse 3) her words will fall on deaf ears 4) he will use her words against her. This is what she’s addressing in the next two lines.

“I don't really care about your crew

You can tell 'em what you wanted to”

His crew consists of the flying monkeys that enable him. She doesn’t care because she knows they are furthering his agenda and are no better than him. They further her silence. Here, she acknowledges he’s gonna spread his lies and there’s nothing she can do about it. Victims often feel powerless, especially during the smear campaign. It makes them want to set the record straight and defend themselves, but that doesn’t do anything and gets used against them by the abuser and their crew. In a way she’s surrendering to the idea that she’s going to be lied about (we will revisit this in ‘EVIL’).

“(Bones are crushing, bones are crushing) Pushin' me

(Body's touching, body's touching) Lovin' me

(Blood is pumping, blood is pumping) Pullin' me

(Feelin' nothing, feelin' nothing) Fuckin' me

(Bones are crushing, bones are crushing) Crushin' me

(Body's touching, body's touching) Touchin' me

Uh-ah”

The song leaves the audience uncomfortable. We can hear cracking and twisting noises as she’s describing, making listeners cringe and wince. The physical effects are heard along with the words. This creates  a lasting visceral impact on the listener. This song is a continuation of the physical body impact on her and why she must get a new form. She has destroyed herself physically for her abuser, carrying out the physical torment he started. Victims often do this by self-gaslighting.

In this pre-chorus, we have more allusions to sex. But sex in a way that’s breaking her: tied to bones being crushed, feeling nothing, and ‘fuckin’ which is a harsh carnal word. This harkens back to ‘TUNNEL VISION’ with how her ex was using her for sex. Sex for her is not a love affair like it should be. It’s rough and physical, more akin to how animals are. She has already established she views her ex as an animal (in ‘LARYNX’) that only cares about carnal desires such as sex, yet she is much deeper and complex than this simple creature (alluded to in several songs and honestly by the creation of this record as a whole which explores her internal reality during abuse). The noise at the end is her letting out a scream of pain. This process of contortionism is making her experience agony, as well as how they’re having sex. Silencing herself is causing her suffering to the point it’s like physical pain in her body (linked by how she is describing this silence as contortionism). She is changing her body (by contorting it and twisting it etc) for him. When she gets her new form, this is even more powerful because she is changing her body for herself rather than for him.

“I'm done, I'm done

Done doing backbends

I break and I snap, it's no fun, no fun

Pushed myself into a box

while you held out a gun

I'm done, uh-ah, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha

I'm done, I'm done, uh-ah, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha”

In this verse, she refuses to put up with it anymore. She can’t. Her body has been through too much. It can’t take it anymore. Despite her trying to endure the abuse, she can’t fight the agony she feels physically. A lot of abuse victims feel physical pain such as anxiety symptoms (heart palpitations, tension,  stomach aches, chest pain, shakiness, etc.) Despite her mind trying to endure, her body knows she’s in stress and it is reacting accordingly. The abuse is  starting to wear physically on her.

She will no longer contort herself for this abusive person. She ends up broken and injured and for no gain. It’s still not good enough for him and she has forsaken her identity (the noose and ribbon line) to the point she is unrecognizable after all of the contorting. This is another element of her having the new form. As the new form, she is completely unrecognizable from the Crybaby she once was.

She feels, once again, like she is responsible for her body breaking down. There is so much self blame within victims. Yet she is doing this to survive. She’s acting out of self preservation. She feels like she must change herself to placate and please him. She says she pushed herself into the box but it wasn’t really her, as seen by the following line which indicates he has a gun. That isn’t much of a choice.

Her laughing is overlaid in the track. I believe the laughing is the kind that emerges from exasperation after dealing with a toxic person for so long and feeling like you’re going crazy. It ties to ‘Mad Hatter’ with how she's starting to embrace the crazy feeling. She doesn’t laugh in that song but how the beat moves as points sounds like laughing. All she can do is laugh at this point. She’s tried to fight it (in ‘LARYNX’) and run (in ‘LEECHES’) and fawn (this song). There’s nothing else. She’s exhausted all her trauma response options, leading to her being done. The outcome is the same. He keeps abusing her.

“Twisting all my bones like screws

Stretching my self worth, just like you usually do

Caught you like the cold or a flu (Achoo)

Praying that I'll someday be immune

Got me like a bad tattoo (Oh-oh-oh)

Always under skin, even when it gets removed (Ooh)

Never got a chance to undo (Oh-oh-oh)

Positions that you forced my way into (Ooh)”

She is blaming herself again and making the comparison that this physical contortion is what he’s doing to her mentally. She says here he is messing with self esteem. This is typical of abusers. They decimate their victims' self esteem (of their worthiness as well as their appearance) which keeps them trapped in the relationship. Since the contortion is happening both physically (twisting, breaking, etc) and mentally (esteem) the contortion is both one of a degraded body and degraded mind.

She likens her abuser to a cold or flu, both diseases which distort the senses. This relates back to ‘TUNNEL VISION’. Her senses are distorted and she’s struggling to know the truth of what’s going on with her vision clouded by her abuser. She might not realize she’s being abused and instead blame herself for the relationship gone awry. He is a disease because he’s infected her. We can see this in ‘VOID’ where she feels the darkness inside of her. Disease and darkness are two ways to describe the horrors victims feel inflicted with during abuse. Disease gradually wears on a person until the virus is rid from the body. Her body is being worn down until the virus (the abuser) is gone. The immune part is speaking to how she wants to one day be healed as well as immune to the ways in which he breaks her in the relationship. She wants it to stop affecting her. I think it also speaks to how in her past, she wasn’t immune. She kept getting into toxic relationships aka being not immune to them. She remained in the cycle of revictimization.

The bad tattoo shows that he is a near permanent mark that affects her appearance negatively, such as a bad tattoo would make a person look bad. He degrades her self esteem which affects how she views her appearance aka making it look unpleasant. Not only that, but society may view her negatively as a result of being with him. He tarnishes her reputation by running a smear campaign against her. Being with an abuser can also damage your appearance because you do out of character things with them.

Like a tattoo, he is hard to remove aka the trauma of him lingers even when he is removed. His words and actions still linger under her skin. This phrase shows that during the relationship he frequently got under her skin. Even when he’s gone, he will haunt her. Getting a tattoo permanently removed doesn’t completely get rid of it. We can see this in ‘LIGHT SHOWER’. Despite having a loving partner, there are residual effects she’s experiencing (flashbacks, being triggered, intense emotions).

“Never got a chance to undo (Oh-oh-oh)

Positions that you forced my way into (Ooh)”

Positions in a couple of ways: sexually (he made her do things sexually she didn’t want to) and positions as in compromising her emotions and making her think things she didn’t want.

MOON CYCLE and misogyny and the natural female state

We know Melanie’s relationship is with a man. We will explore the sexist undertones around heterosexual relationships and periods in this song. Women on their periods often get stereotyped and called names. In the opening, it appears that her partner’s insult is ‘serious’. To which, Melanie responds it is because of her period. She is using the comment that men make against women when they’re upset. Men often say “you must be on your period” whenever a woman is angry or upset. Melanie is reclaiming it and making an entire song about periods. This is a direct link to her ex Oliver, since he has music that involves derogatory comments about periods, such as:

“(I know) Stacking shit, like each brick on my pyramid

I'm angry and bloody like a bitch on her period” (from ‘revival’)

Melanie says: “He bit the cherry down, he’s delirious”. So despite his derogatory comments, Melanie is saying he liked her during her period. She’s calling him out for the front he’s trying to put on in his music.

“Actin' like a real tough, furious”

In Oliver’s lyrics, he’s acting tough. Meleanie is calling out for what it is: a facade.

“He says he doesn’t care, that he's into this

It happens every time a new season hits”

Melanie feels betrayed by his lyrics. When he was with her, he acted like he was into her in this state. And now that he’s not, he’s roasting something that was intimate with him.

Important to note: cycle is in reference to periods, but it can also be in reference to the abuse cycle… and how Oliver treated periods relates to the cycle by how he acted one way with her yet would switch up and become hostile and aggressive. It also relates to the abuse cycle because he says one thing yet does another in terms of the abuse. So he will say loving things yet end up abusing her again. “It happens every time a new season hits” means the abuse is repetitive (cycle of abuse) and usually occurs when a new factor enters the relationship. But with abusers, they abuse over minor things as well yet make it seem like a monumental season so they appear justified.

“Now he kissin' on the ground that I walk on

Tryna get another taste, but I'm all cramped up”

Her abuser is worshipping her like she wants, but it is done for ulterior motives (sex). She is in pain yet all he cares about is having sex. This represents the stage in the cycle of abuse known as calm, where the abuser is in a honeymoon phase with the victim and things seem good again.

“Pain likе a blade on the front lawn

But I don't give a fuck 'causе I'm so strong

I don’t gotta act I’m Ethereous

I could win a fight on my period

Matter of fact, right now, I could build a pyramid

You messin' with my cycle, that is dangerous”

Unlike her ex, she is strong. She realizes that despite her abuse, she’s strong for enduring what she did. Before, she had viewed herself as weak. But as she emerges out of his haze, she realizes her true strength. It takes a strong person to endure what she did.

Periods are a natural thing. She is stating “You messin' with my cycle, that is dangerous” is her saying that he’s messing with her natural way of being. We saw that natural way get distorted throughout our previous song ‘THE CONTORTIONIST’. This is carried over in ‘MOON CYCLE’. He is messing with her being, turning her into something unnatural (once again another tie to the new form she takes on). She is warning him, as she often warns lovers, that what he’s doing is dangerous, and we see why in later songs.

NYMPHOLOGY and labels

Nymphology is the study of nymphs. A nymph is a nature spirit that appears in the form of a beautiful woman. Perhaps Melanie is saying Crybaby is the maiden form and the nature spirit (the new form) is the true nature spirit she is. One letter added, nympho, and we get a derogatory word for a woman with “abnormally excessive and uncontrollable sexual desire” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/nymphomaniac). Since PORTALS takes place in nature/forest topiary, this explains the nymph reference. As far as nympho, Melanie may be adding some commentary that although her partner was way more sexual than her, her showing any desire as this pure nymph creature makes her be labeled as a nympho. Women aren’t allowed to express desire the same way men are. Since this is a study, we can expect from Melanie to be taught or gained some insight about being a nymph. Since her ex is acting like he’s an expert on nymphs and her, she’s going to correct him on what being a nymph actually is like.

“Call me your nymph

Praise me for martyr

praise me for sin

Call me your muse

A sprite or an elf you cry to then use”

Melanie is stating that he has labeled her as a nymph. This label is thrust upon her. As a nymph she is praised for being a sacrifice or for doing wrong. He doesn’t want her in a good state. This keeps her down and under his control. Since nymphs are beautiful, he gets pleasure out of her in negative states. Controlling men like to take down beautiful women they are threatened by and use them for their own gain. We can see this here by how he wants to use her as a muse. Sprite and elf are other names in reference, showing how her labels are interchangeable depending on what he wants. Whether she’s a nymph, sprite, or elf is based on what he says. She closes this by saying he uses her for emotional support and then uses (maybe for sex since this is a recurring theme of being used for sex in the album as well in this specific song). Whatever it is, she is there for his purposes. She is not viewed as her own person, a common theme in her relationship.

“I will not suffer, ah-ah

Cry under covers, ah-ah

I'm not your mother, ah-ah

Ah-ah”

Melanie is standing up to the idea of her being used for his sake. She declares that she won’t suffer at his hands or cry under the covers. This means she won’t hide her pain any longer. In abusive relationships, victims often hide how their abuser is affecting them to their abuser. If victims show that they are upset, the abuser will often emotionally punish them by getting mad. A lot of shitty men have mommy issues, which leads to female partners taking on mothering roles. This is seen here by Melanie being the emotional support as well as being used (although in the mother role, that wouldn’t be sexual but rather used as in doing chores or upkeep for their son). Melanie directly says she is not his mother and won’t do these things anymore. Another way to interpret that lyric is how often in heterosexual marriages, especially ones from the 1950s/1960s and more traditional ones, wives would put up with what their husbands would do without a word. Melanie experienced this in ‘THE CONTORTIONIST’ and she will not any longer. She does not want the same fate as Oliver’s mother. A fate where she puts up with a shitty husband who degrades and uses her.

“It's nymphology, not psychology

Be the manic pixie dream girl that you fucking ought to be”

Nymphs are often victims in Greek Mythology. As said on the genius page for this song, her abusive ex is “making her the nymph protagonist of a modern day myth, with the exception that she has a saying on what is happening to her” (https://genius.com/28109235). Her ex has turned her into a victim and she’s subverting the narrative by making her voice heard, something she’s been fighting for throughout portals. The voice that started to develop in ‘BATTLE OF THE LARYNX’ has grown stronger. She has not fully gone on the offense yet, but she is being more direct in confrontation. She’s correcting him, a radical step for a victim who constantly placates their abuser and goes along with what they say/want. Her ex believes this study of her is psychology aka her mind. Rather, it’s the study of her as this character he’s created. The manic pixie dream girl line reminds me of something Oliver said about her. He called her “alien girl” (https://melanie-martinez.fandom.com/wiki/Oliver_Tree). The manic pixie dream girl stereotype is one associated with lovable quirkiness that men fetishize for uniqueness only to try to use them for their one enjoyment and journey. They are valued for the idea of them rather than how they genuinely are. An example of this is in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Clementine, often regarded as a manic pixie dream girl,  says to her love interest “too many guys think I'm a concept, or I complete them, or I'm gonna make them alive. But I'm just a fucked-up girl who's lookin' for my own peace of mind; don't assign me yours” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338013/quotes/qt1446334). Melanie feels as if her ex views her as a manic pixie dream girl that he wants to fix him and add excitement to his life. She wants peace after a lifetime of bad relationships, yet she’s been dragged into his manic pixie dream girl nymph narrative. In a way, she's resigned herself to fighting the label of manic pixie dream girl. Because of her odd personality, she knows men will label her as that and she’s used to it, so she might as well “Be the manic pixie dream girl that you fucking ought to be”. There’s no point in fighting the label constantly plastered all over you. It’s both defeat and reclamation: being how you are despite what labels get placed upon you.

The chorus continues with “Damaged oddity bought by Sotheby's/

Auctioned to a selfish man who thinks that he's the prophecy”. Since the manic pixie dream girl is viewed as odd and she’s been damaged as a result of her past relationships (and her current one), she feels as if she is a damaged oddity that no one wants, but in a way there is a certain allure she has that attracts the wrong kinds of people. Not people who want to love her for her uniqueness. Rather, exploit her and take advantage. ‘Damaged oddity’  reinforces the level of undesirability she feels in reference to herself. She feels like she’s at the mercy of men, almost as property, since she’s being auctioned off. She lacks autonomy. “Man who thinks he’s the prophecy” refers to an egotistical man who thinks he knows everything aka the narcissist we have established in ‘LEECHES’.

“You can't even spell but you're an expert in nymphology

N-Y-M-P-H-O-L-O-G-Y

that's nymphology”

Melanie is mocking him. He claims to be an expert on her yet he can’t even spell the word. She is saying he can’t even grasp the concept of her yet claims to be an expert on her being. She shows off and corrects him by spelling the word. This reinforces his lack of intelligence we were introduced to in ‘BATTLE OF THE LARYNX’.

“I'm not fiction, I'm not fae

I won't lick your wounds today

But I'll throw you in the ring

Gift you with my suffering

I'm not crazy, I'm not wild

You're just stupid, little child

Get your image off my back

I'll give you a heart attack”

Despite the nymph narrative she’s in, she is stating that she’s real unlike the mythology of nymphs. Fiction can also refer to the fact that she’s not this false construction he has of her in his head. She’s a real person. She is not some character, such as the manic pixie dream girl. Nor is she actually a nymph despite her taking on this persona throughout the song. She’s reminding us that’s what it is: a persona. A persona she is making use of to reclaim her voice in the narrative her ex has created. Since Melanie’s work involves a character (Crybaby), this can also mean she’s telling the audience that herself as Crybaby is just a character. She may feel that fans see her as this persona instead of realizing she’s a real person that isn’t Crybaby.

She refuses the mothering role again, saying she won’t lick his wounds. There will be no more caring for him. However, she will throw him into the ring aka leave him to face his consequences or directly place him in harm's way. Serves him right for the pain he’s inflicted on her. She has no obligation to protect her abuser from harm when he’s been the one hurting her. Victims often feel so  powerless or desperate or angry that they want their abuser dead or to experience the same pain that they caused them. This can be an extension of this. We can see this by “Gift you with my suffering”. She wants him to experience her suffering. He clearly has been gaslighting her again by calling her crazy and wild, as seen by her asserting that she is not these labels. More labels he’s insistent on calling her which are false. Abusers do this a lot. They often project (saying their victims are doing what they’re doing) and gaslight victims by making them feel/calling them crazy. Labeling her as this otherworldly being may be another form of making her feel ‘wild’ when she’s not. Melanie says instead of these labels being true, rather, he is stupid and a child (aka immature as most abusers are). When she says “Get your image off my back/I'll give you a heart attack”, she is telling him that he needs to remove this image he’s projecting onto her (nymph, nympho, wild, crazy, elf, manic pixie dream girl, etc) because she will attack or he will be so scared by her true self that he’ll have a heart attack since it’s so different from the idea he has of her.

“Don't treat me that way, yeah” (she no longer is accepting these labels, his twisted narrative of her, and his abuse)

“You're actin' like a wannabe” (facade he’s putting on… relates to ‘MOON CYCLE’ where he’s acting like a hardass and ‘BATTLE OF THE LARYNX’ where he distorts narratives so his friends view him as the one in the right)

“I won't be ashamed, yeah

For lovin' you so honestly” (reoccurs in ‘EVIL’... he tries to make her feel ashamed for the love she has for him. But she knows she loved him wholeheartedly. Which is part of the reason she stayed in the relationship. He can try to make her feel like she did wrong, but she didn’t. She loved him)

“You're in a spell and it worked” (the spell of his false idea of her)

“And I'm returnin' the hurt” (finally some revenge)

“I'm kicking your ass out” (her finally leaving!!!!)

“Flutter my wings while I pout” (still as nymph in the story yet unlike mythological nymphs, she is taking control and not remaining a victim of the story… breaking out of the victim mold… she pouts as a way to feign innocence into fooling her ex so he doesn’t see what’s coming)

“Push your penis into your mouth

I'll make you choke on your doubt” (she’s forcing him into sex like he usually does to her)

“Cut you off, watch you die

Just a fairy with a knife” (death as a symbol of vengeance. She watches him die, relishing that she’s the one who brought upon his death. In a way, she is playing up the underestimated image men have of her… ‘just’ implies a diminished value. Fairies are usually viewed as innocent. The twist here is that she isn’t. Harkens back to ‘FAERIE SOIREE’ in the way in that song, she has a fantasy she is a vengeful fairy. Her fantasy has come to fruition)

Part 2 of the song, dubbed ‘AMULET’, was a shelved song from her current partner Verde. Yes, functionally it serves as a transition to ‘EVIL’. But there are symbolic connotations. Being with her current boyfriend has given her the strength likely to produce this record (hinted at in ‘LIGHT SHOWER’). Including his music shows his contribution to helping her with the record being produced. Yes, she found her voice on her own, but with his support, her voice grows even stronger and she’s able to publicly create this work of art.

In ‘AMULET’, Melanie represents herself as a gem in a locket. This is a stark difference from how she’s been referring to herself throughout PORTALS. She is gaining back some of her power. Through her boyfriend and ‘killing’ her abuser, she feels powerful such as amulets are. Amulets protect against danger, evil, and disease. Her abuser is all of these things (disease directly referenced in ‘THE CONTORTIONIST’). She is becoming the protective element. Finally, she is protecting herself (as seen by her ‘killing him’, speaking out, and transforming into a new form). She didn’t have an amulet to protect her from her abuser, but now she will become this protective force for her future self as well as others who are vulnerable to abuse.

Melanie says “I am her favorite locket, keeps them droolin”. ‘Her’ in reference to a woman vulnerable to abuse that she is protecting. Men are drawn into her allure, but they should beware. The shine of her gem can quickly turn into the gleam of a blade. It is that facade of innocence with power behind it that we see near the end of ‘NYMPHOLOGY’ with the pouting and then stabbing. She knows how to use this tactic so men don’t suspect her and she can attack them first.

“Where did I get refined, get my cuts, and my polishes?” Cuts refers to wounds from the relationship. Refined and polishes refers to healing from the relationship. All of these things come together to make her as well as her positive qualities. She doesn’t want to erase what she went through. It’s a part of her and how she reached the form she is. Diamonds, for instance, must go through intense pressure and a large length of time to become the glittering beauty they end up as. This is representative of Melanie’s experience. She had to endure abuse over many years to become the protective and beautiful gem she is. The abusive relationship she is recounting in PORTALS is the final catalyst of pressure that makes her transform. We see this transformation through her new form and mindset that is emerging at this point in the album.

With this new mindset, Melanie has gained an even greater sense of self worth than she ever had before:“I am too many karats for your budget, ask the jeweler”. She won’t settle for shitty men anymore, evidenced by when Melanie during a concert said “I WILL NOT SETTLE FOR A SHITTY RELATIONSHIP” and made the crowd echo it. Here she serves as a protective amulet for her fans.

“Your boyfriend tried me on, wore me out, made him cooler” ties back to the manic pixie dream girl trope and how these women often make the man cool while getting worn out in the process. The trying on implies they didn’t want her seriously, but rather as she’s been stating the whole album, to use for their own purposes. In this case, making them seem cool. Or possibly for sex.

“It will be the brightest, the brightest green you've ever seen” Without the toxic relationship in this new state, she can be the brightest version of herself that she dulled and he dulled when she was with him.

“So rare, it is offensive, I think you will agree” is her addressing her abuser. He finds it offensive that she shines, since he tried hard to dull that and make her feel bad about herself. He doesn’t like that she’s discovered her worth. This last line is a verbal wink that she is the victorious one in the relationship. He is ‘dead’ and she is thriving.

EVIL and embracing demonization

This song is the aftermath of getting away from her abuser.

“You called the other day, I stayed away

I left your shit on read, four times today

And it felt like bliss, used to miss your kiss”

Melanie is used to placating and being stuck in the cycle. She’s broken free at last. She is able to ignore him and stay away (the merge in ‘SPIDER WEB’ has been broken… she didn’t end up consumed by him after all) . Leaving him on read is empowering. She often felt under his control and at his mercy. Now she willingly chooses to ignore him, made even more empowering by the fact that he ignored her in the relationship (seen in ‘THE CONTORTIONIST’). She feels bliss that she’s able to do this, when before she was too trauma bonded to leave or ignore him. She reflects that she used to miss him (victims often miss their abuser due to the trauma bond and romanticizing them after being apart from them… showing that this song isn’t directly after she left. It likely is weeks after the fact.

After her abusive relationship, Melanie has learned how to identify narcissists. In ‘LEECHES’, she was susceptible to them. But now she is aware of the knowledge. She says “Now I'm hop-skip jumpin' over narcissists/Throwing all your stuff into the abyss”. Hop-skip jumpin reflects on her ability to now quickly get away from them. She has no desire to save any of his stuff. She gets rid of it into the abyss (perhaps the void from ‘VOID’). She casts stuff from the relationship far away from her. She has moved on.

Melanie is taking the offensive role now, evident by her saying “Now the role is reversed”. She’s the one active now. No more passivity. This line may also imply her ex was employing the DARVO tactic on her. DARVO is where perpetrators will flip the roles and portray their victim as the perpetrator. She may be alluding to the fact that her ex is doing that and playing victim when she was the actual victim. Further proof is how the song is called ‘EVIL’. She is embracing that her ex is demonizing her.

“How you like my spit?/ That's for all the pits, that you left me in” Spitting at him is seen by her spitting words at him aka the song ‘EVIL’. She says this song being dedicated to her ex is as a result of all the dark places he deliberately left her in.

Melanie sings “See, the horns on my head they're from goddesses”. Horns are commonly associated with demons. He is calling her a demon and she’s revealing they have been gifted from goddesses. He is once again misrepresenting and misunderstanding her like he did in ‘NYMPHOLOGY’. He doesn’t understand why the horns are there. They are likely there as a force to protect against future abuse, granted to her by protective goddesses.

The pre-chorus is as follows:

“No, I never knew what it meant

What it meant to be content with you

Everything I expressed, I professed

It nеver quite made it through

Said it's all in my hеad, all in my head

Whenever I spoke my truth

No, I won't defend you to all my friends

This time, I refuse”

Melanie was not truly happy with him. She might have been blinded like she was in ‘TUNNEL VISION’ and thought she was happy, but in retrospect she realizes she was not. These things she could not assert before. She had no voice. Now she can be direct and scathing. There is no more fear. This song represents a lack of fear following reclaiming the power from your abuser. Abusers try to silence their victims, which we will see later in the song.

Melanie tried hard to communicate with him. Victims in abusive relationships often try to over communicate to compensate for their partner’s lack of communication. They put the responsibility on themselves and try to save the relationship, not realizing they can’t when the other person is actively tearing it down. Her words fell on deaf ears. He did not want to hear her.

He told her that her feelings on what he was doing were in her head, a classic example of gaslighting. She tried to speak her truth and stand up for herself and call him on his shit, but she was made to feel crazy and like she was making it up. Her reality was not validated. This creates massive frustration within the victim. They keep trying to communicate to no avail. Like the example from earlier, the only way out is to break out of the cycle. Extensive communication doesn’t work. She realizes here that just like she had to break out of the abuse cycle, she needs to stop wasting her breath reasoning with an unreasonable person.

Victims frequently defend their abuser to friends who raise concern. She refuses to do this anymore. She is going to fully expose him for what he is, which she does through this song. Her tone is aggressive and triumphant. She verbally jabs at her abuser, now able to do this when she hadn’t been for most of the album and the relationship.

“If you bite my hand again

I will never feed you

you can call me evil”

Her ex is demonizing her by calling her evil, the culmination of labels we explored in ‘NYMPHOLOGY’. He calls her evil for not feeding him, without mentioning he was biting her and that’s why she is taking her hand away. It’s a play on the saying ‘don't bite the hand that feeds you’, which means to not act badly towards the person helping you. She has helped her ex much and yet he hurts her.

She is experiencing ultimate injustice: she was there for him, supported him, and helped him while not only getting abused/not acknowledged, but is being labeled as evil. This injustice leads to frustration, hence Melanie’s tone being what it is. She’s saying here she won’t play into his tricks again. She will no longer give him anything if he hurts her. She used to giving him everything. Now she’s setting boundaries, which to a narcissist makes her evil. She knows that his label of evil comes from this place so she owns it, knowing there is no truth behind it. She knows how much she loved him and cared for him.

“Take it to the grave if you wanna play pretend

I won't be mistreated, please call me conceited

Took me way too long to put this to bed

Lovin' you was lethal, guess that makes me evil, evil”

Her ex wants to play pretend aka act like he was the victim when he wasn’t. Taking something to the grave means not admitting a secret/truth ever. He won’t admit what he’s done to her ever. He will die on this hill that she was the bad guy. The grave reference can be seen in the ‘DEATH’ music video with the Crybaby grave. This is a direct connection, linking his secret to her which means it’s in reference to the abuse of her by him.

Melanie refuses to be part of this narrative and claims she won’t be mistreated anymore. If this makes her conceited, she says to go ahead and call her such. His names for her can’t hurt her anymore, which is something she struggled with in ‘THE CONTORTIONIST’ (wanting to be immune to his name calling). She has finally reached immunity. Abusers often call their victims conceited for standing up for themselves and having standards. This gets victims to lower their standards and accept mistreatment more. Name calling is once again used to lower the defense's victim and convince them that they are the issue so they bend to the will of the abuser.

Melanie acknowledges she stayed in the relationship too long and ruminated on it too much (“Took me way too long to put this to bed”). Melanie says something we mentioned earlier “Lovin' you was lethal, guess that makes me evil, evil”. Her love was lethal because she loved a narcissist and it was destroying her, which makes her affection towards him lethal. Once again, he is demonizing her despite her only crime being loving someone poisonous for her.

The words of the post-chorus of “Evil, evil, evil” repeatedly signify him repeating this label over and over in his spear campaign. She hears it echo constantly.

In verse two, we hear:

“​​Remember when you smiled right to my face?

As all my little tears of oxalate

They made a shape, revealed a snake

Now I'm stop-drop rollin' over all your jokes

Every time you tell a lie, I'm prayin' that you choke”

Her abuser betrayed her. He would smile and act nice, but behind her back was betraying her in some way (cheating, spreading lies about her, etc) and as a result, she was hurt and cried which formed a snake pattern which is symbolic of the betrayal. She doesn’t want to force herself to laugh at his jokes like she used to. He lies a lot and now she wishes he would choke instead (reference to ‘NYMPHOLOGY’ as well as ‘THE CONTORTIONIST’ where she choked because of the noose and silencing herself… she wants the roles reversed) Everything that comes out of his mouth is harmful and she’s sick of it. The lying is the extension of the betrayal touched on at the start of the verse.

“Should've listened to the signs and the horoscopes

Hope you never cope, hope you slip on soap

Crack your head like an egg, wanna see the yolk

You were such a hoax”

There were red flags and Melanie ignored them. We often do this. We naively assume we know best even when evidence is in our face showing the contrary. She doesn’t want him to be fine with what he did to her. She wishes him to be eternally struck with grief and guilt over how he acted (and experience the hell he made her experience in ‘VOID’), which unfortunately doesn't happen with narcissists as we can see in this song. He is convinced and tells people he’s the victim. It’s a way to deflect guilt. If he believes he's’ being wronged, then he doesn’t have to feel guilt over his actions. Instead, he can blame Mleanie and she takes the brunt of his emotions just like she did during the relationship. It’s a twisted reality for many abuse victims that their abuse doesn’t stop when the relationship ends. Abusers continue their torment by spreading lies, slandering the victim’s reputation, gaslighting their victim that the abuse didn’t happen or that they’re the actual abusive one. The reference to slipping on soap is possibly a reference to her song ‘Soap’. By referencing this song, she may be inviting him to clean his mouth of the filth (lies) coming from his mouth. She wants to see him dead (yolk from inside his head). By calling him a hoax, she is saying he was a false illusion.

In this song, her anger is directed rightfully at her abuser rather than internalized and directed at herself. She wishes nothing but suffering on this horrible individual. Going against our society’s heavy emphasis on feel good forgiveness narratives, this is not what Melanie wants. Why would she forgive someone not sorry? Someone who abused her and not only did so, but is acting like she’s the evil one? No. He can choke as she says. He made her feel bad for loving as much as she did. A lot of toxic people do this. They make the other person feel like they care and love too much by presenting an air of nonchalance. But Melanie knows she is loving as a person. He’s trying to vilify her with the attribute that makes her so deep and loving. Essentially, she is saying “Fuck it. Say what you want. We both know the truth even if you won’t admit it.” This is the best thing to do when you’re being smear campaigned. Speaking to the abuser only keeps you in their piss games and cycle of torment. Refusing them access to your life and speaking up by finding your voice and sharing your truth validates you more than they ever could. The validation she tried to seek from him she is able to generate within herself.

WOMB and rebirth

Melanie is out of the relationship and has found her voice. She must undergo rebirth now into her new form to symbolize a complete change and to show a physical representation of the mental change that has occurred.

“A seed in mother and I chose that space for me /Little does she know it's free, ooh, yeah”. She is in the womb now, in the process of being reborn. She says how she chose this, further emphasizing her empowerment in the fact she chose to leave. Her ‘mother’ doesn’t realize this is freedom to her. Despite being enclosed in the womb, her undergoing this process is freedom.

“I'm undercover, as they wait for joy, I cry/ On a mission, learn and die, ooh, yeah”. Her experience in her abusive relationship was a learning lesson (how to no longer put up with shitty people which can tie back to K-12 and the idea of learning) and death (shedding her old self to make way for her new evolved self). This lyric shows her family’s anticipatory excitement at her birth, unlike the emotions her ex expressed towards her when she was around. The mission/learn/death line may also represent the journey of healing she embarks on post-relationship. Those kinds of healing journeys involve learning how to identify future toxic people which we saw in ‘EVIL’ as well as learning how to care for yourself and have self worth. The death is the death of her old self like with the previous meaning.

“And I know my brother, he'll make the journey later on

Conversations in the cosmos, yeah”

Perhaps her brother is in a similar bad relationship situation and needs to make the journey she did to be free, and then he can join her in the womb. But for right now, they can only communicate through the cosmos until he makes the journey.

“And it's all a game now, but once I'm in the world, it's lost/ Memories gone to evolve, ooh, yeah”. Things appear differently in the womb than they do in life. The womb is small and confined: a replication/model for life but it’s not the real world. In the womb, things are taken less seriously (likened to a game). Within the womb there are less consequences. But what occurs in the womb doesn’t align with the world at large. This can be representative of how Melanie’s views of relationships were naive, childish, and limited. Once she got into the real world, she learned the hard way that people don’t have good intentions and will hurt her. Leading to her being lost.

“Mergin' cells and flesh

I'm baby-building all my insides right to see the future

Right before my eyes

I know

What's comin', what's comin'”

She is building her insides ‘right’ aka assembling herself in a way that will lead to her a healthy future where she is no longer taken advantage of and lost. It is happening before her eyes, showing that the reinvention of herself is at her hand and she is amazed as it is occurring right before her eyes. She didn't see this as possible while being in the relationship. She knows she will be fully transformed soon (What's comin', what's comin).

The chorus states:

“In the womb, get me out now, safe and I'm sound

Cut the cord, I'm comin'

Out the blue, belly water too, hot and cold

Through with it, oh, now she's birthin'

Feelin' alive the closer that I get to my life

I'm pushin' out the center, the core

I'm swimmin' through the flower no more, no more”

Melanie has finished transforming and she is ready for her old form as Crybaby to die. She is safe now, which is something she wasn’t as the old Crybaby form. She’s being born at this moment, which makes her feel more alive than she ever was as Crybaby. “My life” is powerful because she is claiming her life as hers now, something she struggled over with her ex. She didn’t feel a sense of autonomy. Now she does and it makes her feel alive. The “no more no more” may be a reference to ‘High School Sweethearts’, which has already been shown as a link prior. The no more is in reference to no more shitty relationships, which is reinforced by her going through this complete transformation.

“All of the planning, yet I still feel unprepared

Kickin', screamin' 'cause I'm scared, ooh, yeah

And I know she suffers contractions of hell and death

Eyes are bloody, screamin' out, ooh, yeah”

She has learned so much yet she’s still worried and feels unprepared to enter the world. She has fears of the same thing happening again. Since her mother is going through labor, the screams may trigger her and remind her of her ex (example of her ex yelling in ‘LEECHES’) and so she’s fearful around yelling and is worried she will be hurt again. She acknowledges her mother’s pain of giving birth, something her ex couldn’t do (acknowledge the pain of others). This song is linked to ‘MOON CYCLE’ because both involve the reproductive processes of women. Except in the context of PORTALS, it refers to this process in terms of women giving birth to themselves and reinventing themselves. They aren’t producing children, but rather better versions of themselves. Her mother is a vessel for her evolution and she thanks her for facilitating this process. Her mother must experience pain for Melanie to evolve and grow, just as Melanie had to experience pain herself to go through the initial evolution prior to being in the womb. The womb is where she takes on the new form.

The outro of the song is “Life is death is life is death is life is—” which bleeds (haha ‘MOON CYCLE’ reference) into the first track ‘DEATH’. This reinforces the abuse cycle the album is around as well as how reinventing yourself is a constant process you must be engaged in. You may have to die several times before you can reach your fully evolved self. It can also show that every time you experience a shitty relationship, you must go through a period of healing and reinvention. It is healing when you become something your abuser doesn’t recognize. It severs ties to them.  You have a new image which is untouched by them. And yes, their trauma lingers in your mind, but you have some peace knowing you’re different than how you were with them. As mentioned, this leads into ‘DEATH’ and the cycle begins over.

CONCLUSION

PORTALS explores Melanie Martinez’ experience in an abusive relationship with her ex. The album takes us on a journey to explore the complexities and intricacies of the abusive relationship experience. She does not shy away from the harsh reality of these relationships. A reality she had to come to terms with. She discusses what it’s like to be in the situation while empowering victims by sharing this album as a vehicle for them to work through their feelings as they heal and providing them with the strength to leave if they’re currently still in the relationship. The album serves as a close friend who can validate the emotions of the person being abused, which is needed with how gaslit victims are by their abuser, the friends of the abuser, and society at large. It can put their experience they are struggling to articulate into words through Melanie’s elaborate metaphors and descriptive language. They can feel understood for the first time.

“I believe you. Your experience is real. You deserve to have autonomy and be out of this relationship and you will one day. I know it’s hard to leave, but you will be free of this relationship and when you do, you’ll be a completely different person. You’ll feel free. You’ll find your voice that you thought was lost forever. You will become the beacon of light you once were before you knew him. He might have tried to dull you but he couldn’t. You may feel ruined but you’re not and he can’t take that from you. Reinvent yourself. Reclaim the bullshit he’s calling you. Remove yourself from his narrative and refuse to play along anymore. You’re so much more than he’s made you feel. Healing is a difficult journey that comes with many emotions. Allow yourself to feel them all. He reduced your emotional life to nothing. Feel everything with no one to punish you for it. I know it’s hard to be strong during this. Allow my words as a place for you to lean on until you’re strong enough to stand on your own.” That’s what I feel like PORTALS is saying, and my message as well. I wish someone had said these words to me as I was in my previous abusive relationships and I hope they resonate within you.

If you’re a survivor of relationship abuse, I hope this album can be as helpful and special to you as it is to me. I’ve been in multiple abusive relationships and recently got out of one. I know it seems silly but the timing makes me feel like this album is meant for me. My experiences with abuse have been represented so well in lyrical form and I think everyone who has been abused needs to listen to this album. Music is a major healing force and I think we’ll see the impact of PORTALS as time passes.

You have value and it's unfortunate that abusers make us forget that. In a TEDtalk, speaker Katrina Spade says "in nature, death creates life" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnvnBwP9sTo). PORTALS takes place in nature and through it, we witness Crybaby’s death creating a life of empowerment, strength, and beautiful uniqueness that she won’t be shamed out of hiding. Melanie is in this new form using her voice to share her story. Some fans have even expressed displeasure with her new form. But Melanie is not going to compromise herself. Not for her fans. Not for her ex. Not for society. She lives for herself. In our society, this may be the most radical and revolutionary idea of all.