PHOTO CREDITS// THE OTHER PLACE + HYPERDECADENCE

///VISION LOSS: 100%///

Blurry vision. Started out that way. Looked into the mirror, everyday. Saw a haze of a human floating where once proud bones stood. Bits of my skull, sternum blasted away. As trauma blasted away at me. All the broken pieces of me made bed-sex with all my badness. Could count on the broken pieces sticking around. Not this year. They beat it, briskly. Far the fuck away from me. Once in the post-orgasm morning light, all could see this bad boy doesn’t have a life-wish. These bedsheets were lonely. So I stumbled around in the dark for me. Thought I could dance with my ghost heart under the bed. Nuzzle up to my busted face as it sunk into the shower tile.

Then it went blank. Dark. Lost sight of me. Became Blind, Blind Me.
Used dark pop to clear away the dark.
To turn on the fucking light in my mind.
_

MT EDEN// STRONGER
PURITY RING// BEGIN AGAIN

__

I’ve been racing and pacing

Pounding noise. Music makes me stronger. Not enough to poke my head out under these sheets. Spent, as St. Vincent puts it, the summer on my back. Pacing and racing in the space of a 150cm x 200cm prison of a queen size bed. Traipsed my feet over every centimeter laboriously, looking for a way out. Didn’t see one. Believe me, I looked. Was scared. Never let anyone know. Never. The chemo wasn’t working, at first. Thought it was the end. Couldn’t see a way out. Invited men from all the globe to lay beneath these sheets with me. Thought I could taste the world through them if I wasn’t to see it for myself. Licked them, didn’t see them. Didn’t see myself roll over in bed, while they shrugged and figured they should just leave. Wrote a will in permanent marker on the sheets. Sometimes their asses would smudge it and I’d beg the maids for another. Nothing to leave, really. Only words I’d love to say to some lovely lights of people if I ever could see their smiles shine it’s fucking ok on me again.

Got a call. Hey doc. Oh, the tumour had told me to fuck off. Retreated.
Begin again.

___

///VISION LOSS: 90%///

____

REAL LIES// BLACKMARKET BLUES

I was up really late tonight
Waiting for light to shadowbox

Those first bursts of light were really just fights. Didn’t sleep. Nights and nights and all of them felt like yesterdays, tomorrows. Time was running away. Spent a lot of time sitting on my bathroom counter. Face pressed against the mirror. Tracing veins up, down, sideways on my body. To and from my aorta. Tried to trace myself back into existence. Real Lies told me I was lying to myself. I was my own Local Hero. Was’t the local anaesthetic. Given to cut me open. Licked suture wounds, like I licked all my wounds.

Was a hero for facing the world all unsexy-like.
Bits of my heart peeking through the skin.
_____

///VISION LOSS: 83%///

______

ROBERT DELONG// DON’T WAIT UP
SAN FERMIN// EMILY + W&W
GOMINA// STUPID + FULGEANCE

_______

________

Here in my blurry condition
I hide myself in the room and
Just tell them all that it’s nothing
Alone with all of these humans

Blurry vision is a world class jackass. Had it, couldn’t stop beating up shadows. Most shadows had feet. A brain. A beau to get back to. Were brazen enough to bring me a hug. Ghost Heart became Ghost Bastard in mere moments. Survival mechanism shuts off sometime around never. Especially when you were whispering sweet nothings to sheets of sadness and solitude seven seconds ago. It was all fight or flight, all hours of my heavy heart. Accumulated anger until I evolved into some ugly ass beast I didn’t recognize anymore. Clipped my own wings. Turned me into a flamingo of fury. Rabid, bright pink exotic. Something you can’t help but pay attention as it runs around smacking everything in the face. Was a total asshole.

Said it was all fine. Wasn’t. Let my running away become rapacious.
Scared the human right out of me.

///VISION LOSS: 72%///

__________

PHANTOMS// ALL IN
SOTRW// WHEN WE WERE HUMAN

____________

Somehow I began to live this way
Never thought I’d see the light again
Out of place, out of mind
That’s why I’m letting go

Bashed my bastard face against so many walls. Braced for the fall, every time. Kept crashing and burning, kept thinking I was whole. Had only half vision, at best. Bruises. Black-eyes. Bad boy fashion accessories. Even if you gave them to yourself. Beat my head against so many hearts. Didn’t change until I hit the heart of a woman who gave me humongous mind-love, no body-love. Hurt like a bitch. Couldn’t have a pretend that I could keep this up. Was avaricious for anger, nibbled on its thong every night. Was killing me, man. Realized I had to let go.

Begged ghosts of old lovers to guide the way.
Back when I was human.
_____________

///VISION LOSS 61%///

______________

WOLF COLONY// THE ONE + LF
DENITIA + SENE// THE FAN

_______________

All those Novembers, I spent alone
All those Decembers, were rotten
You came back to lift me up
And make me sane

Madness gives you moxxy. No way it turns you into a mensch, doe. Not even much of a man. Miniature wannabee man making love to the sidewalk gravel amongst all the men stomping their way to some real sweet heart, ass. Charisma cuts everyone to the quick. How you slide through all the craters your ‘truth bombs’ left. Cancels out all the things people’d call you out on. Cos you’re dancing, half-step in the light and dark. Get’s too intense: phase out into the noon light. Disassociate into the non-damning 23:00 darkness. Spent so many Novembers, Decembers, and Februarys alone as I’d Marched into Maybes of change. I’d always been a mixture of testosterone, flying fists and legs in the air; but I was holding my legs up now and kicking and screaming my way into a lonely, lonely life. Brandished steel toed boots and gave heart damage to anyone who’d been inside me. Held it up like it was something an honorable heart does (it isn’t).

Cool down my brain. Warm up the darkness. Fan the flames of my fury away.
And I can see again.

________________

/// VISION LOSS: 49%///

_________________

YOUNG EMPIRES// THE GATES

heaven.is.a.place.i.just.can’t.find

because i am blind to the man i used to be.
__________________

WALES// LOSE MY MIND
GRIMES// REALITI

___________________

I’ll just try to lose my mind
If you want, then I can
Give you mine

Lose my mind, please. This one’s busted. Basks in bathhouses because people are overbearing. Have bits of humanity they want to hold my hand with. French kiss me into an infuriatingly futility of a regular fucking, feeding each other french bread as we watch E4 shows in my bed. Darkrooms don’t have danger. Realiti is temporary. Rent a room for an hour. Be charming for about 60 seconds. Blow out the candles on your cock-wish. Simple. Non-sweet. Job done. Helluva way to give the heave-ho to a human hankering. Horrible place to house a heart. Walked around Babylon in Bangkok a whole 79 hours this year, didn’t touch a hair on anyone. Had a hunk bent over his bed. Saw myself in a sunshaft. Saw me still living in the 100% no-vision times.

Saw it was shafting me something more.
Wasn’t my realiti.
___________________

///VISION LOSS: 31%///

_____________________

TROPICS// RUN BACK REWORK
COYOTE KISSES// REVIVE

______________________

Slow your roll
Run back to here

Lap up melodies like lucid dreaming. Can place myself in the seconds my sad-ears saw these songs. Soi 1. Sathorn area. Bangkok. Was cold in January. 11C. Fucked up for the tropics. Kept my window open all night, three nights. I was fucked up. Was from the moment I stepped in that room alone. High flying in a high-rise. Big hits to keep the feelings of my hiding humanity high above my brain. Didn’t want my brain to run back run to all the blame I’d started to put on it. Can’t blame yourself for having cancer. Can blame yourself for being alone. Had a friend die in this hotel room the last year. Sat on the bed and swam in ecstasy, all those times his energy electrified me. Shouted to him and his spirit. Swore his skin cells were chillin’ in the plaster. If I seduced him. Cooed. Showed him a cockshot. He’d come screaming through the walls and shape some semblance of a man. And I could talk, again. I could say what was on my mind. Sat on the bed for three days and stared at the ceiling. Spoke to him ghost heart to ghost heart. Was the only time all year I told anyone how I was feeling.

And when I left, I stumbled around MBK center. Escalators upon escalators. Rode them out of my mind. 10,000 people in that mall. No one saw me as anything other than 10,000 pieces fwapping in the wind. Fell out later that day in an internet cafe. Dopamine damaged. Gone, really. Watched Fringe reruns in a recliner chair. Looked around before I passed out.

Thought even then, before I’d lost my vision.
Shit in me needed to revive.
_______________________

/// VISION LOSS: 15%///

________________________

THE SHOES// GIVE IT AWAY
TEAR COUNCIL// ANYWHERE

_________________________

Steal your heart
Give it away
Attached your head to your heart
Before it strays

Saw my head run down Nguyen Dinh Chieu street. Was dusk, damn near darkness. Saw my eyes, temples lit up by the streetlamps. It was running fast as fuck man. Was on the back of a motorbike. Told that driver to floor it. Ho Chi Minh City on any given street has a thousand heads giving head, having a head-bobble with the humanity of another. Was going to lose it, my head was always a bit of a solo slut. Had a war with my heart, hated it for laying down in the road. Five years ago, people ran over it. Mistook it for roadkill with SARS. Burned it to be safe. Mind/body, heart/heavy thoughts hug-outs a thing of the past. Most years, handshakes at Christmas was the best holiday camaraderie I got. Made sure they didn’t hit each other. Relative peace. Until mid-April, when my head ran away. Lost its way over the Phu Nuan bridge. Floated forever somewhere into the night.

Chased after it for hours. Should’ve seen the warning signs. Was the beginning of the end.
And the end of the beginning of me.
Asked the world for something more.

__________________________

///VISION LOSS: 5%///

___________________________

LAST DINOSAURS// APOLLO
SEINABO SEY// PRETEND

____________________________

_____________________________

SAMEBLOD// FLOURISH

Someone just told me to leave all my sorrow
If that is true, I don’t know who to be

Cured blindness in the #Postcatastrophe Ghost Heart era by:

Dancing spontaneously in traffic, not high.
On a bus to the airport holding all the stresses in my heart with a tender hand
At 30,000 feet laying down the law to let go.
Knowing that I didn’t win any of my wars this year.
Still standing on a pedestrian overpass, screaming:

i’m ready to be somebody else

///VISION LOSS: 0%///

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