People broke me. Stage 3 cancer didn’t. Nor the isolation. Or the need to send me and my broken little heart international in case the cancer came back (it did). I mean, the chemo killed me. Only 6-8 seconds at a time doe. I guess, hooray. I chalk that kind of break up to creative destruction. Smash to start again. As weak as I was, as much my organs cried each night and told me to give up: I never broke. Until I wandered in the gaze of another human. Then I was rubble. I used to liken it to being hit by a speeding car, holding my arm and the sewing needle, stitching my limbs back on as I sprinted across Seventh Avenue. I know why people abandoned me when I needed them most. I understand. I shouldn’t have to. But I had so many hours alone to bounce around in my mind, and my anemic arteries were not having all that abusive jazz. No one wants a bag of disease bopping around them at a concert. Or sprawled on their sofa, bleeding on their pillows. And it took me years to love even a single cell of mine again. But when the doctor gave the a-ok, all I wanted to do was run back to people. Some days I wish I hadn’t. No one liked me, not the me I became to survive. Seven days a week people made a point of telling me how much I sucked. Empathy was never mine to be had. Not sick, not all alive. So, I threw dance parties for ghosts of me in my room, alone. Someone had to love the versions of me that had the power to give side-eye to the real, true end of existence. Even if that was just me and all my regenerated heart cells.
This playlist is dedicated to all the misunderstood survivors of trauma. Some hope sent to you via me and 24 musicians. Never stop shaking your ass to the sounds of other souls like the artists featured here. One day you’ll speak the same language as everyone else again. Ok, so, maybe seventy percent. But you’ve survived worse.
// FULL PLAYLIST AT YOUTUBE. PHOTO CREDIT HYPERDECADENCE //.
HOLDING ONTO FEAR, IN LIEU OF COMFORT
REMEMBERING WHO I WAS WHEN I WAS YOUNGER
WHEN EVERY STEP I TOOK
WAS WITH MET WITH THUNDER
YOU SHOULD’VE KNOWN BETTER
THAN TO LISTEN TO YOUR HEART AGAIN
PEOPLE CHANGE WITH THE WEATHER
BREAK ME DOWN, I HOLD MY GROUND
UNTIL MY HEART STOPS BEATING
I’M FEELING OKAY, SOLO
I TAUGHT MYSELF HOW
A LITTLE CRAZY, LITTLE SEXY, LITTLE COOL
LITTLE ROUGH AROUND THE EDGES
BUT I KEEP IT SMOOTH
I’M ALWAYS LEFT OF CENTER AND THAT’S
RIGHT WHERE I BELONG
WELL, I’VE GOT SIXTEEN DAYS
TO BE A ‘MAN’ ABOUT IT
AND THERE WERE FIVE PAIRS OF
EYES ON ME TODAY, I COUNTED
DO YOU MIND? I DOUBT IT
BATTLE WITH MY INSTINCTS
EVOLUTION GIVING ME
THE SKILLS THAT I DON’T NEED
AND THESE PILLS THAT I THINK I NEED
I FEEL LIKE A WILD ONE
LIVING IN A VIOLENCE
I DON’T WANNA SPEND MY LIFE
THINKING WHAT THEY’LL THINK
IF I GO SEE HER SHOW,
SHE MIGHT COLLAPSE AND LOSE HER LIFE
LIKE FUCK THIS LIL’ DYKE, THE WAY SHE’S GOING
IT’LL BE HER FAULT IF SHE EVER DIES
ALL THAT TIME YOU WAS TALKIN’,
THAT SHIT WAS EATIN ME ALIVE
THROUGH THE JUDGEMENTS YOU DIDN’T SEE
I WAS FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE
HOW COULD I SEND SIGNS?
AND GOD FORGIVE ME I CRY
THEN I’LL BECOME AN
ATTENTION SEEKER AND NOT A LEADER
SEE PEOPLE WILL ONLY
REALLY UNDERSTAND YOU WHEN THEY NEED YOU
AND YOUR VOICES MADE IT HARDER,
AND THAT’S JUST HONESTY
I HAD TO SHOOT UP TO MY BRAIN TO BECOME
THE PERSON THAT I WANNA BE
I LAUGH WHEN I’M WITH FRIENDS
BUT I’M SAD WHEN I’M ALONE
[BUT] I GOT TO SEE YOU LIVE FOR MORE
YOU SAID IT BEFORE
YOU WISH I’D SEEN THE SAINT YOU WERE BEFORE
SO I COME TO YOU, WITH MY HEART OVER MY HEAD
WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD
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