poetry analysis second draft

Paige Borowski

10/4/19

Lit and Performance IB

Surviving On Your Own

“Runaway” by Greg Kurstin and Tanner Schneider made me feel sad and sympathetic for the speaker of the poem. I felt so much emotion when listening to this song. When taking away the music and transforming the song into a poem, I could see why. The speaker of the poem is constantly lonely and always on the run. She has a hard time loving someone. It suddenly became clear. This poem tells readers that self love matters more than love from others. 

It's hard to love someone and not deal with any pain. You get hurt from trying put others before you. In the poem, there’s a line that reads, “Used to fall head over feet But everyone I loved deceived me.” That shows that she put so many people ahead of herself. She tried to make their love the most important but it did nothing but hurt her. She suffers from loving others. If she loved herself first, she would be happier. All that hurt causes her to be lonely.

Because of the hurt that comes from loving others, loneliness seems a bit more enticing. The only person you can tryst is yourself. The line, “You could say my shadow is the only friend of mine.” It shows that she doesn’t have many friends. The only friend she has is the one that’s a part of her. It’s the only friend she can truly love without being hurt. It’s basically loving yourself, right? She is happiest when she does. Loving others hurts you.

When you try to put someone else first and give them all of your love, you get hurt. It affects you in a bad way. “I was lookin' for love, in the fire, in the flames. But the only way to love, is to get yourself burned.” To me, it shows that love is hurtful. That you can only love another if you are hurting yourself in the process. It’s putting all your feelings aside to make someone happy. In doing so, you get beat down and lost. There’s no happiness in loving someone else more than yourself.