And don't let go

lest all the wild things

we've kept dark at home

will take mold

and grow blinding cotton fields

only the teeth of our guillotines can sow

can you see?

within their matted fur?

now shone by that old cold sun?

oh! how it lights up those

sleepy stars like slitted eyes

in some forever jungle hummed

as part of a daydream

or a river-

a river that rages on

and on

and on

towards that flat line

seen by glassy eyes

not knowing why...

only a pearl of an inkling

that it came from the pain

we had both felt

once we left each other's chests bare

not knowing our fangs were the only things

that plugged the holes we made

before we had met

or at best the string that could've held

the creeks of our palms

twined, tangled, and signed

like the shower tiles for our hair

maybe in another life

the ink never runs thin

and rages on

to blot out that old cold sun

there, we can let them roam and graze

with eyes open

while our lips sink deeper and deeper

into each other, until calling our names

echo hymns we forgot

were a part of someone else's dream

assuring us that the only thing

which shades the contours of our faces

are dancing fireflies

from those thoughts

we promised each other

to never let go of

I wonder

how you are

as I crane my neck up

towards the stars

like antennas blinking red lights

and there, blinking back at me,

is that bright blue one

you had pointed out

with those frail fingers of yours

calloused and shelled

from tours done by the hands of stick insects

around, around, around

circling tree rings

molded fit for our necks to look out from

slowly dyeing our skin lavender

and windpipes rose

from some slow swan song

am I still in your mind?

a razored sliver hanging off burnt ends

of nerves, slowly being whisked away

by the fanged winds you carry

there in your chest and then in our bed,

until embers and fireflies

are snuffed out, asundered

or is there nothing there anymore?

just the charred remains

camoed in the lightless place

we stuff behind closed eyelids

I asked if I can kiss you & you asked

"where?"

oh my little heart skipped a tiny beat

as that query curved down & skipped

to the very end

of your dirt blonde hair

without pause I said "your cheeks"

like it was stupid to even think

I'd say your lips

but I wanted to,

the cliff just seemed

too steep

nowadays I forget we don't talk anymore

even in my head or in the shower

yes a flicker would burn silently at times

there behind clouds of sheep

yet that face halved by an amber lamp

blurs the same way as my first ever dream

maybe its the brain steering my sails

away from an ancient pain

able to tame a sun's shin

by shelfing you at some sacred place

where wool warms & dampens

your baritoned hymns

or maybe I've wrecked already

stranded beneath starving waters

whose fangs had soaked the tears

so all I'm left with

is the beauty of the sun from under here

how it doesn't hurt to stare anymore

I stick my tongue out

to let your shadow kiss

but a paltry taste of what

I thought would numb my knees

from the pain

I felt would give me bliss

if I just stuck it out

and held my lips

clamped, remind myself of our good times

during the bad ones

and how you were always there

whenever you weren't

or whatever we should've held

close to our chest

yet our mouths betrayed

and the dams buckled

but they didn't break nor bend

just forked little rivers and little lakes

for our chimps and turtles

to live in

or whatever we should've said

instead of the silence

that ferries dead words 'cross the styx,

saying "we could've built something else here"

something whose shadow

is thick and strong and black as onyx

making itself known into the skin of the earth

branding "I am all that will ever will be forever and ever amen"

and by god I'm not making any sense

anymore, just following that tug

that leads me, incessantly, knowing

I don't know where I'm going

I play the script

and paint over this mold

with peacock green

a sheen only fitting

the cotton bloom

that can give one pause

because it looms in some forgotten corner

you thought it never could

and hang myself in my head

the way normal people do

i force myself to brush my teeth

just so i don't forget my face in the mirror

tell myself "yes this is who I'll be today - this is who I am"

and wash off this cocoon that swallows my head

like they say

sweet is the crown that wears this cotton candy head

or is it the other way around?

or is something else wrong?

the questions stir

something I don't fully like

snaking a pit there

the size of a star

right below where my stomach

sends its busy work,

this pin-sized star's

not too big to make me bleed

but small enough that fields of apple trees

can cover up all the blood

from just a single seed

it threatens to grow and mold

yet never does

just there, ever static, ever dull

waiting

in disbelief, I finish off while pissing

foam spit drowned in yellow

I stare, pulled by my river, forgetting

what someone who was close to me

from another life

told me this morning

how do you remember

the moment you've started forgetting?

just woke up

and the rearview mirror's broke

crossed state lines but you don't even

know where you came from

you've popped out of nowhere dear

all you are is now, blinking in and out

with your eye floaters the fishes of a dead sea

bloated and depressed like a memory foam headrest

and know

that this place, the wind here only blows

for your trail, not you

not for the sweat dragging their nails

'cross your nape

but for the hair that dies on checkered linoleum

and hanged nails cut down from half-moons

nails tap and scrape against

my phone screen

this Moses parting the white sea

his credit card staff

rap against the L.E.D.

*rap* *rap* *rap*

in 4/4, no swing, lost all of her luster

just the powdery taste of lustral and mother

going on

about how

they never had the paint we have to paint with

and how

bad it all was back then

and how

good I've had it since sun down

and how

good it'll be till the next dawn

if I just chose to feel the warmth of that break

and not the cold at the back of my arms

I know ma

but these tiny lungs have been swept

from its feet

up to my throat

and every breath closes the gap

between the burn on the skin

and that fire it gave itself to

-------------------------------------------

Sometimes I get stuck in this waking coma. Or choose to at least. Prolonged days of passivity. Glue my eyes onto the computer screen and not even pay any attention to what's happening. Whatever video's playing is a wall for me, so that I can live in my head. Wall of a house, a castle, a whatever. Looks impenetrable but really it's just

white noise like a fog which comfortably blankets my daydreaming.

Hard to talk about it. Feels mad. Unreal. Brain rationalizes it somehow, and enough days of that, the rationalizations doesn't seem like rationalizations. Just that it was always the way it is. Your true self. This is it.

I get scared when I'm doing good. These brief moments of clarity. And it's the only way I can talk about it now really.

Trying to pinpoint why I'm afraid of these good days.

It's the fall really. Push the rock up so far. The fall's inevitable, it's going to happen, you can't stop it. Then you sink back.

The amount of times I've tried and failed and tried again. To stay here in these moments of clarity. God, it's a lot.

Earlier, I looked at my flower-patterned blanket hanging off the railing. Just stared at it. The side I was looking at was shadowed. A thought creeped up. That this wasn't going to last.

Nothing really does. I get sad when I'm happy because I know it'll end. I don't like my birthday cause when you're going to bed, you don't want to let go. This special day. But still you move on. And the day after, nothing really changes.

I stopped counting when I turned 21. My brain takes a second to remember I'm 22. I'm 22.

Trying not to think too hard about things anymore. Trying to let go more often.

I remember in those moments of happiness, with friends or family. I'd burn the image in my head. Like in a video call with my parents. I'd focus intensely. Taking a picture of every wrinkle and every white hair and every crease of what makes my dad my dad. Cause I know one day, he won't be here anymore. Appreciating what I have now, all I can do really.

The funny thing is, when I look back at those images I branded on my skull in the future, it'd feel like a dream. My brain would've added some extra details or took some away. But the feeling would still be there I reckon. A sliver at least.

this little hornet

wriggling in-between the grooves

of my brain

stuck

with wings fluttering

a roar

always dying

always alive

and i can feel

its little legs

and its hair

and its mouth

and its eyes

brushing against it all

against me all

again, again, again, again, again, again

again, again, again, again, again, and again

ferries me to this island

carpeted in a fog

thick you'd forget your face

and your legs

even if your fingers traced the contours

on the air

and at some point

running's the same as walking

sitting's the same as standing

crying's the same as laughing

and that roar

a God's roar

a Hell's roar

a Child's, a Dust's, a Star's, a Throat's,

you don't even know if either you

or that little, tiny

hornet

mothered it

1.) The Powers that B - Death Grips [rape, experimental] (pretty much all of their discography)

First time I listened to Death Grips was the track Guillotine from Exmilitary when I was 16 or 17. I remember hating it, thinking it was just noise. It was nauseating at the time. Now they're literally my favorite band, and their discography's timeless - I can listen to Exmilitary and think it was dropped yesterday.

Don't know what happened when I went to college. I think I got burnt out from listening to the same stuff over and over again so somehow Death Grips smashed all of that and clicked for me. Either that or it's stockholm syndrome where I forced my brain to dig the shouting and the production that likens beating your head in with a hammer.

Favorite track off of this double album's On Gp. Helped me through my first year of winter in China. Just did mushrooms for the first time then and it kind of sent me into a depressive episode so the track means a lot to me.

I suggest reading the lyrics if you're listening.

"All the nights I don't die for you

Wouldn't believe how many nights I ain't died for you

On GP

Not that I care, I'd be a liar

If I sat here claiming I'd exit in a minute

But I can't say I wouldn't, I have my limit

All the nights I don't die"

2.) A Long Drive... - Modest Mouse [alternative]

Never got into Modest Mouse until when I was 20 or something. Always knew about them growing up but it was only from the song Float On which I had always mistaken for Franz Ferdinand's Take me Out. A close friend of mine who's a huge Modest Mouse fan made it click for me.

A lot of memories are bundled up in this album, most of them hazy, shades of gray. Favorite track's Talking Shit about a Pretty Sunset. My friend and I were on acid while we listened to it as we watched the sun rise on his birthday. Good word play and melancholic compositions, it's a band that definitely counts as one of my influences in terms of music and writing.

"Talking shit about a pretty sunset

Blanketing opinions that I'll probably regret soon

Changed my mind so much I can't even trust it

My mind changed me so much I can't even trust myself"

3.) The Microphones in 2020 - The Microphones [indie]

This one's a record that clicked only recently. I've listened to it when it came out and wasn't too enthralled by it. Then I listened to it after I broke my leg about a year ago, was kind of the only companion I had throughout the whole ordeal. I remember putting it on on a car ride to the hospital to get an x-ray, we turned into a roundabout and it felt like life didn't feel real. Maybe it was just gravity being weird in roundabouts, I don't know. But at the time the trees that were bending from the wind and the buildings looked like miniatures or a caricature of a city.

After that, I started to dig deep into Elvrum's discography. The Glow Pt.2, It was hot we stayed in the water, Mount Eerie. This DIY aesthetic he has and the raw, unfiltered lyrics resonates with me.

I would drive out to the ocean and not tell anybody

I watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in a dollar theatre in Aberdeen

It was a rainy matinée, 2001, Sunday, March 18th

And in the parking lot afterward

For a few minutes in the rain

I stood glowing with ideas

Of what I might try to convey with this music

At that moment, my mind flashing like a blade

4.) Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada - Godspeed You! Black Emperor [post-rock]

So Godspeed You! Black Emperor used to be the first one on the list when I was younger. They showed me that music doesn't have boundaries and you can make of it what you will which blew my mind as a kid. To have these 20 minute slow, lumbering songs that end in a crescendo was new to me at the time. They went further down the list but they still have a place in me.

Without lyrics but through field recordings and orchestra-like performances, they show rage and dissatisfaction on how the world's ran, with glimmers of hope sprinkled in here and there.

5.) You Won't Get What You Want - Daughters [noise rock]

It's a lot. You get two breathers throughout the album, Less Sex and Daughter, the rest is like having a knife stab your ear drums over and over again. I've always described it as a horror movie when talking about it mostly because of how the guitar parallels the sound effect off of the Psycho shower scene.

Favorite track is the closer Guest House. The end of the song feels like the sun came up after a night of primal rage.

I have come from the distance

Where you can't see

It is there, believe me

Now let me in

Let me in

Let me in

6.) Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains [country, indie rock]

This one's pretty out of place. Never was into country but the cheery instrumentals contrasted by the depressing as hell lyrics really grabbed my ear on the first listen. Added to that's the catchy hooks and goddamn do they get stuck in your head. Favorite track is either "All my Happiness is Gone" or "I Loved being my Mother's Son"

Guess this went on here cause the lyrics really meant a lot to me, and the closer "Maybe I'm the Only One for Me" gave me this glimmer of hope for Bergman that was very much dashed away when he committed suicide about a month after he dropped the album. I don't listen to it often, only when I'm drunk, but I don't drink anymore either.

"Mounting mileage on the dash

Double darkness falling fast

I keep stressing, pressing on

Way deep down at some substratum

Feels like something really wrong has happened

And I confess I'm barely hanging on"

7.) Visions of Bodies Being Burned - clipping. [rap, experimental]

I like rap but I rarely listen to them in an album sort of way, just singles and a few tracks here and there. This album was an outlier though. Daveed's headbobbing flow whizzes through and bounces over horrifying ambient productions and fresh, boundary pushing instrumentals. The previous album There Existed an Addiction to Blood had the track Run for Your Life where the main beat was being played out of a car that would drive by at different points of the song, matching Daveed's flow at the same time. It's insane. And cool as hell.

Favorite track's Enlacing. Drug hazed and an absolute banger.

"Your body is a drug you love, you crush

Make the most of magic, map the math of it

Master mouthpiece and extract the past from it

Plummet, plumb it, plum pit, fruit

Summit, some shit, sunk ship, loot

Loop, feedback, look, see that

Bloody sack, you used to be that"

8.) Lost and Safe - The Books [folktronical, post rock]

Melodic and calming, this was an album I'd always put on during acid trips. Helped me calm down during tense moments. The production's very intimate like they're tickling your ears or they're there performing in the same room as you. Favorite track is Smells like Content, can't even count the amount of times this song anchored me.

"Most of all the world is a place

Where parts of wholes are described

Within an overarching paradigm of clarity

And accuracy

The context of which makes possible

An underlying sense of the way it all fits together

Despite our collective tendency not to conceive of it as such"

9.) songs - Adrianne Lenker [acoustic]

This one's recent as well. Was one of the records that inspired me to play guitar and write songs. Very beautiful and comfy, reminds me of when my friend would play guitar on the balcony as the sun started to set. Can't really pick a favorite on here, each one of them stand out on their own but forwards beckon rebound shows off some of Lenker's best lyricism and god her voice is like ginger tea with some honey.

Virtual bedroom

Rise like a full moon

Show me pictures that hang in your house

Pictures that hang in your mouth

Candescent insects

Crosses and fishnecks

I have nothing to pray to you now

Nothing to pray to you now

10.) Shukusai - Ayano Kaneko

A Japanese record that really encapsulates the whole start of the 2020 quarantine. My housemate (the one that got me into modest mouse) and I would just put this album on repeat. We were pretty much drunk the whole time and on the verge of losing our minds because one of our friends went missing at the same time as the quarantine started but this album kept us up and going.

Groovy, catchy, a ray of sun during winter. I'll always keep this with me.

Favorite track's the closer.

Honorable Mentions:

Spiderland - Slint

Maggot Brain - Funkadelic

Infest the Rat's Nest - King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

The Seer - Swans

Drukqs - Aphex Twin