Nick Carraway: And I Still Love Him

 The song is "National Anthem" by Lana Del Rey, from her album, "Born to Die." Copyright 2012.  All words in italics belong to her.    

And I remember when I met him

I met this man at one of those parties he hosted. We spoke for a moment and my world changed in the most remarkable way. 

"I'm Gatsby," he said. And that's all he had to say. I fell in love with his gorgeous smile.

It was so clear that he was the only one for me

We both knew it right away 

We had a connection. Something profound about the importance of deceit in both of our lives. The others didn't have that. Tom and Daisy cared for nothing, nothing at all. Gatsby and I, we both lived as recklessly as everyone else that summer, but we drank our champagne more carefully. 

Gatsby, he took me places, showed me things. I loved those golden snippets of time we shared. The hydroplane, the party, the car ride....

And as the years went on things got more difficult and we were faced with more challenges. 

I spent those long days of July watching him love her, fight for her. Daisy Buchanan. I watched them cheat, drink, and lie to my face. God, I remember all of their names now. Jordan, Myrtle, Wilson... Gatsby was better and worse than them all put together. 

I begged him to stay. Try to remember what we had in the beginning.

 He would never listen. It wasn't his fault. He could buy anyone anything they asked him for. A mansion, an island, a million dollar dress, a top of the line car. Nothing was too much for Jay Gatsby. But I didn't want jewels or beautiful shirts. I wanted the American Dream. That was all. 

He was charismatic, magnetic, electric, and everybody knew it.

A man or a God? No, he was a sham. A goddamn fantasy. There was something about him, a charm and idea that made us buzz around him like flies. 

When he walked in every woman's head turned. Everyone stood up to talk to him.

Of course, he was handsome. He wore these fancy suits. Pink, cream, gold. All elegant colors. So elegant you wanted to get down and grovel at his feet. 

He was like this hybrid, this mix of a man who couldn't contain himself. I always got the sense that he became torn between being a good person and missing out on all the opportunities that life could offer a man as magnificent as him. 

He was no angel. By the end, we all knew that he was barely a real person. He was a mythological persona, merely the product of seventeen-year-old boy's imagination. But that persona was everything to me. He was the man I loved and the one I wanted to be. A bootlegging criminal living on the edge of the law who somehow saw the green light... and had the incredible vision of hope. Hope was the thing I strived to have in a world where I was forced to lie about my identity.

And in that way I understood him.

Like I said before, we were the same, worlds apart but the same. Jay Gatsby and I. 

And I loved him. I loved him, I loved him, I loved him, I loved him. 

Every single day and night I loved Gatsby. I spent every minute thinking about him. 

And I still love him

I love Jay Gatsby.

I love him.