I went to that therapist appointment determined to keep my shit together. Real calm, measured, professional. We were twenty minutes in when she asked me about equality in my relationships and I just… broke. Right there on her overpriced couch talking about how I’d become this watered-down version of myself trying to keep someone happy who couldn’t even see me drowning. That feeling — when you finally admit out loud that you’ve been disappearing? Zahra Deljoui’s ‘I Wanna Feel’ lives in that exact moment.
This song fucking gets it. The way Zahra opens with “Recently sleep walking like a robot,” goddamn, that’s the exhaustion I’m talking about. You know when you’re going through the motions but you’re checked out emotionally and every interaction feels choreographed and you catch yourself wondering if this is what settling feels like? She continues with “Came down, now we’re almost sober / We had a phase but i guess it’s over?” and there it is — that brutal clarity when the honeymoon phase wears off and you’re left looking at each other thinking, shit, now what? “Just another year older” hits different when you realize you’ve been aging but not growing, stuck in relationship purgatory.
The pre-chorus builds with this desperate self-awareness: “Think we could be, losing it, every-thing / Finally I know what I, know what I need.” That repetition feels intentional as hell — stumbling over the words because admitting what you need means admitting what you’re not getting. Then the chorus drops and the gospel-choir Jonatan Bäckelie layered in transforms this from a breakup song into a fucking resurrection. “I wanna feel loved / I wanna feel hopeful / I wanna feel everything in me,” each line stacking with more voices and power, turning a personal plea into this collective scream for validation. The production swells with warmth that contrasts the cold reality of the lyrics. It’s church for girls who lost themselves trying to be someone’s everything.
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Actually, wait. Can we talk about that second verse for a second? Because “I ain’t saying that you’re a bad person / you make me laugh but the kinks ain’t working” — that’s the mature breakup energy we need more of. Your partner doesn’t have to be evil for the relationship to be wrong. Sometimes the chemistry just dies. Sometimes you’re compatible on paper but dead in practice. The way she follows with “Some things should have been rehearsed / ’cause some words can’t be unheard” makes me think about every fight where someone said that one thing that changed everything. You know the moment — when they reveal how they really see you and suddenly you can’t unsee it either.
Zahra has been making music for the queers, the neurodivergent kids, the ones who never quite fit the mold. Remember when “Pink Moon” ended up soundtracking the National Autistic Society’s #NowIKnow campaign? Or when “Love is Love” was all over Vevo’s LGBTQIA+ Women in Music playlists? Yeah that’s her. She doesn’t fuck around with surface-level representation — this is someone who actually gets what it means to exist in the margins and makes that shit sound beautiful. This ‘I Wanna Feel’ fits perfectly in that lineage — music for people who’ve been told they’re too much and not enough in the same breath.
The modified chorus variations hit harder each time. “I don’t wanna feel like I’m slipping away / Every time you’re next to me.” Fuck. My ex used to pass out holding me and I’d lie there counting his breaths. Forty-seven. Forty-eight. Anything to avoid thinking about how I wanted to crawl out of my own skin. Sometimes I’d even get up and sit on the bathroom floor just to feel something real. The cold tiles, you know? At least they didn’t pretend to give a shit. I used to cry about being single and there I was in bed with someone crying harder. “I wanna feel something / I wanna remember the old me” is that specific grief of losing yourself so gradually you don’t notice until you’re already gone. She sings “I wanna be your equal / I want you to have a little faith in me” and “I wanna feel hopeful / I wanna feel everything in me,” bouncing between what she wants from them and what she needs for herself.
“And I wanna be heard / I wanna be equal / I want you to see the pain in me.” That last line, wanting someone to acknowledge your hurt without having to perform it for them. I think about all the times I downplayed my needs because bringing them up felt like begging. “I don’t wanna feel disconnected / I don’t want to feel like we’re ending” shows that desperate attempt to save something that’s already gone followed by the resigned “that’s all I need” and the haunting callback “did you get what you, get what you need.”
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The production throughout stays lush but restrained, letting Zahra’s voice carry the weight while the gospel elements lift her confessions into something bigger. It’s pop with soul, literally and figuratively. Those choir vocals transform personal pain into collective catharsis, suddenly it’s not just one person asking to be seen, it’s every person who’s ever felt invisible in their own relationship.
I’ve had this on repeat for three days straight. Played it getting dressed this morning and somehow ended up ready to burn down my whole life and rebuild it better. That’s the thing about this track — Deljoui made something that hurts but doesn’t wallow. You listen and suddenly you remember you used to have standards. You used to laugh without forcing it. Fuck, you used to like yourself. The gospel backing turns it into church for girls who are done shrinking.
The old you isn’t gone. They’re just waiting for you to want them back.
