How Paramore's "Last Hope" Helped Me Heal

TRIGGER WARNING: sexual assault.

I have loved Paramore for every moment of their existence. I grew up listening to lots of female pop stars, but it was largely unheard of for a woman to front a band - let alone a band that played Warped Tour. Hayley Williams became an instant inspiration for me, someone who has always secretly wanted to be in a band and play music for a living. Her personality, wisdom, genuineness, and style were all things I admired from the very beginning. I feel as though I've grown up through and with Paramore; each of their albums came out at a time in my life where I needed guidance from a woman who wasn't my mom. I spent so many days dancing around my room and singing into a hairbrush along with All We Know is Falling and Riot!. I used to pretend to put on concerts, and I'd serenade all of the posters covering my walls. In those moments, I channeled teenaged Hayley. I envisioned myself with brightly dyed hair and dramatic makeup, jumping around on a stage. Brand New Eyes was released my senior year, and it was a time when I needed direction. I was very much a misguided ghost, like the song with the same name.

Those albums carried me throught to my junior year of college, when they released their self-titled album. During that time in my life, I was in the midst of an unhealthy and abusive relationship with one of my exes. He was notorious for manipulating me, and on more occasions than I can count, forcing himself on me. I'll spare the details, but the one thing that always stuck in my head was him telling me to "just let it happen." Those words stung my eyes, burned my throat, and filled me with a sense of panic and dread, even if I was hearing someone else say them in a completely innocent context.

When Paramore's self-titled album released, I fell in love with every single track. Except for one, initially. "Last Hope" seemed to catch me off guard, all because of one tiny familiarity in the lyrics:

"I don't even know myself at all, I thought I would be happy by now/The more I try to push it I realize, Gotta let go of control/Gotta let it happen, gotta let it happen/Gotta let it happen, so let it happen."

The very words used against me, made to traumatize me so deeply, being used now in an attempt to help me empower myself to stay strong. I felt the familiar stinging eyes and burning throat, but this time they were met with a resounding surge of hope. Optimism. The more I listened to the words, the more the entire song made perfect sense to me. It felt like it was written specifically for me to hear:

"It's just a spark, but it's enough to keep me going/And when it's dark out and no one's around, it keeps glowing/And the salt in my wounds isn't burning any more than it used to/It's not that I don't feel the pain, it's just I'm not afraid of hurting anymore/And the blood in these veins isn't pumping any less than it ever has/And that's the hope I have, the only thing I know that's keeping me alive."

I started to feel like myself again. I did everything I could to avoid him. Stopped answering his 4am phone calls and random texts. I started telling people what he did to me. I told my friends. His friends. Eventually, I told my mom. Everyone had sympathy. But every single one of his friends had the same response: "I'm really sorry that happened to you, but I'm not surprised." It stung for a long time, but with the help of therapy, and many days and nights of listening to this song, I began to heal.

In the summer of 2014, I was fortunate enough to see Paramore live. I made sure to buy tickets that were actual seats in the venue rather than lawn seats. I was in the second to last row of seats in the venue, and the band were about the size of ants (and blurry ants, at that), but I couldn't have cared less. I was in the presence of my hero, my idol, and nothing else in the world mattered.

That night, they played Last Hope. I sang so loudly I lost my voice. I cried. I lifted my hands into the air and allowed myself to release the hurt I'd been harboring for so long. It wasn't permanent, of course, but in that moment, I was free.

I still cling to that moment of freedom on my dark days. And even now, almost six years later, it never lets me down.