It was my heart I gave you

Ain't no easy thing for me to do

Been returned to me in pieces

Oh no honey it ain't no good no more

It's all broken up abused

Who'd want it now it's all been used

Sweet lord only knows

Well I ain't got no more love to give

Your love been like a rolling stone

Forever ain't a long time at all

Forever ain't a long time

When there ain't no remedy

This feeling ain't gonna be leaving me

So much remind me of you

I light my cigarette the way you do

Been bare foot in my kitchen

And you been in every one of my rooms

My pillow has captured all your dreams

And your nightmares I keep in my shoes

Well there ain't no love in this lonely place

I done wasted all my love on you

Well you know I seen the dark side

And you know I made the shadow my friend

You knew this when you met me

It intrigued you back then

But now you're afraid to be with me

With all you said and done

You said forever you would love me

Forever ain't a long time to come

My fingers have seen every inch of you

And the blood that you keep to yourself

I done tasted that there little evil

I been crawlin my way outta hell

Your thin line lip of deception

Been working over time

And there ain't no right combination

That's gonna get us outta this here trouble this time

Would seem to all be left up to chance

I'd see the fire in your head

And I knew the dance

It all seems like so many years ago

But I'm still burnt by the curse been cast

Was I a fool to try and hold onto you

Shoulda been strong enough to let you go

If I'd seen all the things that I do see now

Baby believe me I'd 've run from you

Well my love is all I got to give

Got to give to anyone

It's a choice you make and a risk you take

When you wanna believe in love

When you only wanna be loved

Well I ain't gonna choose love no more

I ain't gonna choose no love

If you only got that kind of conditional love

I ain't choosin love no more

Forever ain't a long time at all...

I could ask you "are you dead like me?"

Call me what you will, but call me again

It's true I don't talk too much

Because our lips won't last forever

And that's exactly why

I'd rather live in dreams and I'd rather die

Because our lips won't last forever

And that's exactly why

I'd rather live in dreams and I'd rather die

Pretty face could you make the jump with me?

I'm dying just to let things go

Do you remember the lightening storm?

It was the first time that I really felt you

Because our lips won't last forever

And that's exactly why

I'd rather live in dreams and I'd rather die

Because our lips won't last forever

And that's exactly why

I'd rather live in dreams and I'd rather die

We've got eyes on the back of our heads

As the mountains melts together with the sunrise

You tell me about the time

When you turned yourself into a stranger,

And all the chemicals were dancing in your blood

When you dear suddenly felt seasick.

Because you thought all lies were revealed.

And the thing that I felt when you told me

About that house with that singing weathervane

Oh, determined heart please translate it!

These cryptic messages hidden in between,

Her moon and her sky and her oceans

Cause I don't seem to understand them anymore.

Now the bachelor seems to wind up in the corner.

And his army of lovers they have left.

And the breakman is obviously sleeping.

Cause this train is going faster than light.

I still dream

Wake up cryin'.

You're making rain,

And you're just in reach,

When you and sleep escape me.

You're like my yo-yo

That glowed in the dark.

What made it special

Made it dangerous,

So I bury it

And forget.

But every time it rains,

You're here in my head,

Like the sun coming out

Ooh, I just know that something good is gonna happen.

And I don't know when,

But just saying it could even make it happen.

On top of the world,

Looking over the edge,

You could see them coming.

You looked too small

In their big, black car,

To be a threat to the men in power.

I hid my yo-yo

In the garden.

I can't hide you

Oh, God,

I won't forget.

'Cause every time it rains,

You're here in my head,

Like the sun coming out--

Ooh, I just know that something good is gonna happen.

And I don't know when,

But just saying it could even make it happen.

And every time it rains

You're here in my head

Like the sun coming out.

Ooh, I just know that something good is gonna happen.

And I don't know when,

But just saying it could even make it happen.

Ooo-ohh, just saying it could even make it happen.

Falling through your song

My desires come undone

Though I looked for you all night

The words were never heard.

When I dreamt of you so sweet

In the garden of my touch

Drowning into sheets

Imaginary love.

In the world of social media, we are our own self-portraitists. Our digital identity is doctored to show the best version of our lives. (Maybe a more apt name for Facebook would have been “Best Face”.) It’s not a new observation to point out the disparities between our online identities and our real selves, but for me, as a cancer patient, that gap has never felt larger.

If you had visited my Facebook profile last June, you would have found pictures of a smiling 21-year-old. This was a happy, successful, carefree person. On Facebook, aren’t we all?

What most of my Facebook friends couldn’t have known was that this young man no longer existed. In the “real world,” I was in the oncology unit of a Sydney hospital, undergoing my first round of intensive radiotherapy. My hair was falling out in clumps, and it had been weeks since I had eaten solid food or taken a walk outside. Even my name had been changed, inadvertently — my hospital door tag read "Wilson".

When I learned I had an aggressive form of leukemia 12 months ago, a lot of things were running through my head, but updating my Facebook profile was not high on the list. After all, in the land of Facebook, I didn’t have cancer yet. Friends were still posting on my wall. Online, I was still a healthy university student, who was “in a relationship”.

But every time I logged onto my Facebook account, my profile felt more like a stranger’s than my own. In the midst of a medical crisis, I found myself preoccupied by a social media question. To share or not to share? I wondered to what extent my digital life ought to reflect my real one.

As long as illness has been around, people have faced the challenge of communicating what it feels like to be sick. But social platforms like Facebook and Twitter make it easier to share than ever before. Even so, I found myself hesitating to answer the Facebook prompt that asks, “What’s on your mind?”

My first social media decision following my diagnosis was to cut and run. I deactivated my Facebook account. Looking at pictures of my healthy precancer self stirred uncomfortable emotions; it was a reminder of a life past, of all that had been taken from me.

I wanted to withdraw from the world until I got better. Then I would reactivate my account and move on with my life as though nothing had ever happened.

To share my cancer with my Facebook “friends” felt way too public and maybe even trivialising. After all, cancer is not something you “like” on Facebook. But in an age where our social media presence is so inextricably linked to our identity — on and off the computer — not updating my profile to reflect my new reality felt inauthentic, even dishonest.

Five weeks into my first hospitalisation, my doctors informed me that my disease hadn’t responded to the treatment. Exhausted and depleted, I couldn’t imagine starting the process over in a few weeks. It was the first time that it struck me that I might not get better for a long time, or at all. My cancer wasn’t seasonal, or something I could temporarily hide. Illness was going to be a part of my life. For now.

After the hospital, I went home to my bedroom. I had completed an almost total retreat from the world. I found it hard to even pick up phone calls from my closest friends. What did I possibly have to report? My days were a dreadful routine of meals, medicine and the view of the ceiling from my bed.

But my self-imposed exile weighed on me. As hard as it was to relate to my peers — 20-somethings starting new jobs and new adventures — I missed my friends. And my disengagement had started to worry them. In this hyperconnected age, when we’re all keeping tabs on one another through our online avatars, not updating a status message can be its own kind of update.

I began to reconsider my Facebook silence. For several months now, I’ve been posting updates — about chemotherapy, baldness, nausea and the like. There’s a liberation in the type of public honesty you can engage in on social media. And in some ways, venturing back into social media has been better therapy than any prescription.

For the first time since I’ve been sick, I feel connected to a responsive community I hadn’t previously known existed. I like hearing from other cancer patients, and their caregivers, who share with me their own stories and wisdom. And for my friends, this has been an opportunity to witness and engage in an ongoing conversation about what it means to have cancer in your 20s.

So much has changed in my life since my cancer diagnosis. But now, when I go to my Facebook profile, I see myself again.

Down in my valley

Are vultures like lovers

That search for

That something

To hold on to

Maybe 

It's crazy

To hope for

Something more

Than flesh, bones, teeth, skin

Won't they ever 

Let you in?

Would you 

Hold my 

Hair back 

When I'm sick?

Sometimes 

We can't say 

What we're meant to.

If I am

Please don't

Remember

Those nothings 

From our heart 

That quickly

Exploded

Dancer in the night

Playing with my eyes.

Velvet tongue so sweet

Say anything you like.

Crush me with the lies

And tell me once or twice

That love is paradise,

That love is paradise

Finally relax my weary limbs, 

Just lay still

The ceiling undulates,

The fault of some strange pill

I see your body in the doorway, so it seems

I must accept my eyes 

Betray these half-dreams

Oh, I need your bedroom eyes

Oh, I need your bedroom eyes

The hours to the sunrise creep, but I don't care

There is no hope for any sleep if you're not here

In another city, in another bed you're sleeping

So won't you come and visit me when I'm dreaming

I fear that I'll never sleep again

I fear that I'll never sleep again

Oh, I need your bedroom eyes

Oh, I need your bedroom eyes