Those are not my words, they’re John Darnielle’s. If I had to choose one band/musician to describe the ending of my last long-term relationship–or at least to set a good story to good music–it would have to be The Mountain Goats.

Not that my break-up is a good story, at least not in that way. It’s actually pretty bleak and anti-climactic, but it’s the lack of a need for us to hurl breakables and yank our hair out that makes it so heartbreaking. I mean, what if I wanted to yank my hair out, wait for the scab to heal before I rejoin civilized society with a half-assed excuse for my sudden bald spot. What if I wanted to feel like there was something worthy of hurling bottles at walls? Instead, all I really remember is shrugging, going to bed, and waiting for it to sink in. It didn’t take long and it came with a sigh of relief, a gradual unburdening.

It’s not a good story and I still have trouble telling it without being too cryptic or too general. We’re still friends though, which is a wonderful thing to come away from a 5-year-long relationship with. From time-to-time though, I still wonder how something that bore so much gravity on my choices can suddenly feel so weightless. --ALICE SARMIENTO

Download Breaking-Up to The Mountain Goats

1. “Old College Try” from Tallahassee
   “I want to say I’m sorry for stuff I haven’t done yet. Things will shortly get completely out of hand. I can feel it in the rotten air tonight, in the tips of my fingers, in the skin on my face, in the weak last gasp of the evening’s dying light, in the way those eyes I’ve always loved illuminate this place.”
2. “Wrong!” from Taking the Dative
   “But you don’t do anything. You don’t do anything. You don’t do anything.”
3. “High Doses #2″ from Come, Come to the Sunset Tree
   “The echo in the hollow places rose up high and dry and lonely, wringing my hands, grinding my teeth: all the triumph overhead, all the disaster underneath.”
4. “Faultlines” from All Hail West Texas
   “But none of the rage in our eyes seems to finish it off where it lies, I’ve got sugar in the fuel lines, both of us do. Now the fights and the lies that we both love to tell fail to send our love to its reward down in hell. I’ve got pudding for a backbone, so do you!”
5. “There Will Be No Divorce” from The Coroner’s Gambit
   “If I ever wanna drive myself insane, all I have to do is watch you breathing, and at 5am I turn the radio on and an old man’s voice sang a short sweet song. And then the static roared again, it was hungry for blood. I could hear the rain falling from the rainspout down, down into the sweet wet mud, and you punched out all the windows, and the wind began to wail, and you gathered your hair behind your head, like god was gonna catch you by the ponytail”
6. “This Year” from The Sunset Tree
   “I’m gonna make it through this year if it kills me.”
7. “Raja Vocative” from Ghana
   “I stood out on the balcony, I took a look around, and a bird you would have loved the sight of brought the sky down. And I could hear your voice ringing. I could hear you singing from all the way across the country in Palm Springs. I could hear you now.”
8. “The Mess Inside” from All Hail West Texas
   “We went to New York City in Ceptember, took the train out of Manhattan to the Grand Army stop. Found that bench we’d sat together on a thousand years ago, when I felt such love for you I thought my heart was gonna pop. I wanted you to love me like you used to do.”

   But I cannot run and I can’t hide from the wreck we’ve made of our house, from the mess inside.”

9. “Woke Up New” from Get Lonely
   “And I wandered through the house, like a little boy lost at the mall. And an astronaut could’ve seen the hunger in my eyes from space. And I sang ‘oh, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do without you?”
10. “Sometimes I Still Feel the Bruise” (Trembling Blue Stars cover) from Babylon Springs
    “I’m under no illusion as to what I meant to you, but you made an impression. Sometimes I still feel the bruise.”

The title of this mixtape is from “Fault Lines” (All Hail West Texas, 2002, 4AD records.)