YOU MUST KEEP YOUR SOUL LIKE A SECRET IN YOUR THROAT //
✋silky fatty
👃dark red wine-stained altar cloth, dried rose petals, velvet, yellowed paper, candle-smoke, cathedral dust, hint of clove
*NOTE: each slime comes with a RANDOMLY CHOSEN choker-style necklace in addition to the other add-ins. See the photos for some of the options! There is also a screw-in hook included, which you may screw into the cork top of the bottle to turn it into a necklace charm. Please do not mix your choker-style necklace directly into the slime. It is meant as something to wear separately.
"Vampires Will Never Hurt You" is the first single from My Chemical Romance's debut album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. The lyrics tell the story of a person lamenting their transformation into a vampire, asking their lover to stake their heart. Songwriter Gerard Way said the song is about the early signs of his alcoholism and “feeling like a scumbag”. It’s generally viewed as a metaphor for realizing you are in the process of becoming someone you don’t want to be, trying to resist forces of corruption and self-destructive behavior, and begging for someone to stop you before it’s too late.
Now, I’m gonna take this in a bit of a different direction because (surprise) I wanted to do a queer/trans reading of the song.
I see the narrator’s fear of becoming a “vampire” paralleling with the fear of becoming something others see as dangerous and evil. In the song, the narrator begins to desperately seek ways to stop it from happening even though it’s inevitable.
There’s a clear sense of fear of being “caught” and exposed, having one’s deepest inner self illuminated and being socially ostracized for it: “if the sun comes up / will it tear the skin right off our bones?”
So, the narrator hides this part of themself: “you must keep your soul like a secret in your throat”
There are many attempts to rid themself of internalized shame through conversion, religion, substances, and self-erasure:
“Someone get me to the doctor / Someone get me to a church”
“Take this spike to my heart [...] Will it wash away this jet black feeling?”
“We'll shoot back holy water like cheap whiskey”
Ultimately, I feel like the song shows some of the painful parts of coming to terms with one’s queerness while in a hostile and unsupportive environment, and how so often that fear is unfortunately turned inward as self-hate.
