I've got a complicated relationship to Sufjan Stevens' music, but I'd be withholding the truth in a way bordering on deceitful if I didn't tell you that the first time I heard this song, it brought me to tears. There's a lot of interpretations around this song that don't take it literally, and I'm not sure how you can do that. I mean, the words are saying it all.

I think I spent so much of my life asking myself this question that this song hit me like a ton of bricks. Even now, as an adult, who is clearly and obviously loved, there is still a yearning inside of me for an acceptance that I will never find, because I will never be able to really accept myself as I am. I toss in everything I make, every compliment sent my way, and the pit never really fills up beyond a point that is disappointing. That's just how it is.

In its own way, death is the final acceptance, and the only true end to the yearning. That's why I think this song leans into the sacrifice stuff. For some reason it also reminds me a lot of Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose, but I think everything reminds me of that because it represents my unifying theory of the universe.