The Most Beautiful Bitter Fruit

It's a song about the way so many young adults enter into casual sexual relationships. The narrator wants to do the same, but he can't bring himself to. He can see the beauty in the momentary connection, saying "It's like medicine. It's self discovery" but he also sees that the connections are temporary and he can't handle watching people leave, even if he only cared about them for a single night.

The root of this fear is that he's been left before. There's a past love he can't get over. The line "Was it integrity that kept my hands to myself or just the thought of getting too far ahead of you?" might indicate that he still keeps a vain hope that they might get back together one day.

As the song ends he wonders if he's been placing too much value on his past relationship. Maybe it wasn't as good as he remembers it. Maybe it was no more complex than the fleeting relationships he's been avoiding. He ends proclaiming that temporary love is better than no love. He asks us to open ourselves up to love so that we might eventually find "a body that makes sense" or in other words, our true love

"time can be such a funny thing: always moving to the future, glorifying the past, and amplifying the pain in frames and glass."

beautiful. <3

This is fucking poetry.

I noticed something. "I see the church steps, a vision." I think this is a reference to the song 'Nine' from here hear III where he says "I recall on those church steps when i moved to kiss your chest." Also in 'Nine' he says "I should have stopped to paint our picture, captured honest, pure affection, just to document the difference between attraction and connection." and in this song he says "So was our touch half as sacred as i've made it seem"

I really think there is a correlation between what he's talking about which really gives this song a lot more depth.

for me this song brings me back to high school parties, all those hormones, people ready, willing, scared, nervous, drunk, high... "Between a longing for more than what the body wants now and What the body wants now more than anything..." i can remember how seeing a girl i liked, wanted, yearned for, made me feel like exploding... 'more than anything'..."i am the worst of me" perfect description of my thoughts as a stared at short skirts in the young night...what a truly great song...meaning so much to so many im sure

borderline personality disorder IN A SONG.

from the title to every single lyric, it's BPD, just look into it "the most beautiful bitter fruit"=it's about splitting: both idealizing and undervaluing the person that you are with

"I am a mess of these old themes"=feeling that you have no sense of self other than what you've made of yourself for the people you encountered before. building a personality trying to please the ones you idealize and then when they leave, you're left with only that, because in reality, you're just a blank canvas that you overwrite whenever meeting someone new, and have no background other than the traits you adopted from others from before.

it's talking about those nights when every fear just becomes such an intense feeling that you it becomes truth in your head. thinking so much about a situation that you fear and you suddenly start believing it's true and it's happening. could be self doubts or doubts about a loved one - with BPD it's usually just one person that you're obsessing over, hence the "what i fear you have (...done)" part of the lyric. he fears that his loved one has done something that would upset him and thinks of it so much that he start doubting his honesty

"no love, no life, no history"=again, he feels like he has nothing to himself but a facade that he build for impressing the ones he loved before. also, with BPD, whenever you meet someone new, you feel like you've never felt the feeling of love before. the next lyrics are all about living in the moment and being led by physicality - and how we use that to cope with the missing parts of ourselves. he's addicted to it and there's no sense of self worth, his value measures in physical pleasure i think the "see, all the secrets i keep, why are they secrets?" lyric stands as a separator between the 2 levels(physical and emotional). usually with BPD at the beggining you only focus on sex&physical pleasure and validation. people appreciating you for how fun you are - just so later on the other side of yourself pops up and you become needy and dependant on the person you're with. you realise you shouldn't have opened yourself to this person, but just keep it physical only. now they see your true self that you've been trying to not show so that feeling of physicality is only temporary. it passes(with BPD feelings just come and go), he starts to want more than just physical pleasure, longing for closeness. he's afraid of not getting "too ahead" of his partner, meaning he doesn't want too get overly involved because he's afraid of abandonment("I only know I never wanted to get left behind.") again, he turns to the physical part. the next lyrics are about that. again, it feels like medication to him, like he's feeding an addiction. coping with the feeling of emptiness by compensating on the physical side. again, putting his self worth into that and feeling like it's the only thing he needs("Trap the healing in whatever bed they end up in.")

even though they broke up, he's still seeking to know the truth about his previous relationship("I want to feel it out. I want to know how it works. I want to know if it was worth it to worry, About the ghosts I feared would haunt the memory, About the damage that I'm sure the fear has done to me now.") he feels like he invested too much into it and he's still doubting himself and the other person

"And time can be such a funny thing, always moving to the future Glorifying the past and amplifying the pain in frames and glass. So was our touch half as sacred as I've made it seem Or just another fabrication of a half-dream?" - it always feels like you have to move to another person just when your previous loved one got to know the real you. with BPD not only are you idealizing or undervaluing your loved one at the same time, but your feelings also are amplified(,,amplifying the pain in frames and glass."). every emotion feels like you're either in heaven or in hell. he's glorifying the past= he's only seeing the good parts about it and not the reasons why he moved on in the first place. not knowing for sure if he's just idealizing the one he loved or they really were as sacred and perfect as he made them seem in his head.

"Just those chemicals, the adolescent love. Just us trying to grasp onto meaning, Onto a purpose, Onto a sense that Something spiritual releases when the feeling hits." trying to make his feelings more meaningful and giving them depth in a wrong way-through being physical again. he's given a false sense of closeness by sex. I think "the feeling" is actually the moment of orgasm- it's again a separator between what he's feeling. his emotional state changes again : "And in that moment sparks and harps play out A sweeping melody through fog and fantasy And in that moment there's an honesty instinctive and pure but It departs like it came, rapid and bearing no more Than fleeting ecstasy of natural harmony." he feels ecstatic(feeling too intensely and exaggerating his perception of emotions). it departs like it came, rapid and bearing, leaving him feeling empty.

the conclusion of the song is in the last lyrics, in which Jordan is saying that there's nothing wrong with feeling emotions and we shouldn't close ourselves up as a coping mechanism. we just need to find a right person- a body that makes sense- someone who we won't undervalue or sanctify, someone whose flaws we both can see and be accepting towards "They fear the notes being played and try to sing along. Don't be ashamed, be free to the feeling. Don't be ashamed, keep feeling. But find it: a body that makes sense.

I've felt it."

guess it could be interpreted thousands other ways but this song just hits too close to home to not write this here