Gone Now is the second album by Bleachers (Jack Antonoff), released June 2, 2017. After listening to it many, many times, here are some of my thoughts on it. 

Review originally posted on Medium

Gone Now feels like a story. Like a tragedy simultaneously unfolding and being dealt with, all between music that isn’t devastatingly sad, that isn’t energetically joyful, but walks that perfect bittersweet line in between. You can’t decide between triumphantly celebrating surviving something you never thought you’d survive, or collapsing into yourself with leftover devastation. The music feels anxious and sad but also distinctively hopeful and full to the brim with courage.

Bleachers has always, to me, felt like the kind of music you maybe find yourself humming to because it’s so catchy, and then you really sit back and listen to the lyrics and the meaning, and it’s devastating, and so powerful, and it hits you so hard with its depth and emotional complexity as you explore it further.

Gone Now has exactly that type of emotional intimacy and vulnerability. Sure, at the end of the day, it’s still an album that’s being bought and heard by thousands and thousands of others around the world, likely sometimes at the same time you’re listening to it. But you still feel, in the dead of the night, that it’s you and you alone with the music.

Personally, Gone Now feels like someone waking up one morning and slowly saying goodbye to the world. Fading away bit by bit, in a deeply introspective and personal montage. It’s a whole life condensed into a day, a weekend. Waking up, walking through the world, then they’re gone. As Jack mentioned in an interview before, this album reflects an idea about what everything would be like if he’s gone, and the cover of the album is what he envisions his picture would be like displayed at his funeral.

In that vein, and amongst all the complex issues Gone Now explores, this album really does condense a lot of emotional power into twelve tracks. It’s grief, loss, recovery, farewell, love, heartbreak, falling apart and holding yourself together, all woven between powerful melodies and layers and layers of sound and catchy vocals and music.

Simply put, it’s a certain type of catharsis coming alive in the form of an album.

Recurring themes tie the album together into a cohesive journey; no song really stands in a vacuum on its own, even though each has a distinct enough sound, setting them apart. Self references, repeated phrases, everything creates a cyclic story that makes the album less a collection of songs sat together and more of an interconnected emotional story from beginning to end. Initially, ‘Dream of Mickey Mantle’ directly references ‘I Miss Those Days’ and ‘Don’t Take the Money’; “I miss those days so I sing a don’t take the money song.” But there are so many more threads within the album.

Saying goodbye. Moving on. Leaving. Lost. Rolling thunder and cursed bedrooms. Strangers. Street corners. I gotta get myself back home soon. I just gotta get home.

Goodmorning, to the cops, to the kids, anyone who lent me a favour. Goodbye, to the friends I had, to my upstairs neighbour, to the kids downstairs, to the dream downstairs, anybody who lent me a favour.

And the very end of the album, at the end of Foreign Girls: “Goodbye…You should know that I loved you all.”

The honesty and devastation in the album never loses its impact even dozens of listens later. It’s an emotional concept album, and it feels, at the end of the day, exactly what a second Bleachers album would sound like. As a huge fan of Jack’s music, I didn’t fully know what I was waiting for, only that I was eagerly awaiting new Bleachers music, but after listening to the album, I knew I was waiting for this.

Apart from the themes and emotional impact of the album, sonically, there are so many intricate layers to every song that I’m still a little in awe every time I relisten to the album.

Jack recently posted the Making Of videos of 'Don’t Take The Money' and 'Goodmorning' on his Youtube channel. Amongst many other things, little intricate details like the sounds of the street recorded and played in the background of 'Don’t Take The Money', the harp in the background of the song that gives it its deeply bittersweet emotion; the trumpet in 'Goodmorning', the warped voice recordings — all these little details that we don’t consciously notice listening to the music, but which really, really complete the songs — all of those details give Bleachers’ music the depth that I really love about it time and time again.

Along the line of Bleachers’ music, on a final note, Gone Now also feels in some ways like a musical sequel to Strange Desire. The ‘I’m Ready To Move On’ in the 11th track of Gone Now. The “I wanna be grateful” that can be heard at a few points in the album. And also, if I sit down and listen to Strange Desire from beginning to end, and have ‘Who I Want You To Love’ fade into ‘Dream of Mickey Mantle’, it has an almost natural progression forward.

Gone Now is almost definitely one of my favourite albums of the year, and it’s not even mid July yet. It’s an emotional and incredible musical experience at any time, but personally, it really does have a special impact listened to at night — on a long drive, on a walk through the neighbourhood alone, lying in bed before falling asleep.

There are so many more things that could be said but what it really comes down to is that this is definitely an album that deserves a listen — then several dozen relistens. And many, many more.

untitled feb 12

The street is dark and deserted, only barely illuminated by the last one or two lit windows in the distant building. I take my earphones out and let them fall into my jacket pockets, taking in the bitingly cold world at 3 am, silent apart from the slight crunch of my boots in the snow. The stars swim, strikingly clear, in the indigo sky above. I glance up, far above, to the full moon as I continue walking forward, with no real destination, but just an unwavering feeling of needing to keep going. 

My fingers are numb, eyelids heavy, and I feel my face slowly numbing, but I know I can’t go back home right now. I swallow the rapid, heavy beating of my heart and narrowly avoid stepping into a deep puddle of icy water. I focus on my breathing and my steps and nothing else, the freezing cold and surreal feeling of total isolation washing over all my senses. 

A slight breeze dances past me and I pull my jacket closer to myself. I barely plan out where I’m going, but my feet lead me towards the old destinations, somehow needing to relive them every time. Here is the field where I played pretend with my friend, there is the playground where I ran until I dropped to the ground in exhaustion as a kid, and there yet again is the forest where I saw the coyote that one time my parents were driving me home from the hospital. I could barely see over the car dashboard back then. I remember my mom hugging me close as I pointed excitedly at the animal shape at the edge of the trees watching our car roll past. I wonder if she remembers that moment, that memory that has oddly stayed completely lucid with me more almost ten years later.

I stand by the road - the street lamps are broken, one is flickering eerily several feet away - and stare into the forest. If I try hard enough, I can almost make out a shape staring back and I turn away, heading off the road into the small backyard neighbourhood hidden behind the fields. 

There is not a single noise or movement at this hour. I pass a daycare, the small swings and benches indifferent in my peripheral vision. Still, I recognise every one of these places. If not by sight, then by the stirring of familiarity in my chest as I pass them. The world feels underwater, resting at the depths of an unseen ocean. It feels like the entire universe is asleep and no matter how far I run or how loudly I shout into the sky, I will not wake it up. I only feel oddly serene as I navigate the side roads with no sense of urgency; passing by quiet houses in the near distance, gaze brushing past the bikes leaning against the walls and the quaint snowmen standing unmoving in the snow.

I try to take each scene in in a way that overwhelms me, making the present reality so large and all encompassing that it leaves no room in my mind for anything else.

I keep walking. I’m far from home now, having taken a long detour into a neighbourhood which I haven’t truly ventured into since I was in elementary school. I find myself smiling despite myself and I stand in the middle of the road for a moment. There is no car in sight and I stuff my hands deeper into my pockets, craning my head upwards and staring at the sprawl of stars ahead; splashed into the sky like a sweep of a paintbrush. They blink and glimmer, huge cosmic giants big enough to swallow the earth whole, condensed into a speck of light in the darkness. I might as well be invisible, a flicker of life in eternity, at this one particularly insignificant moment in time staring off into the night. 

I breathe out, watching my breath clouding in the air in front of me as I look back down. I don’t recognise what I feel. I only step back onto the sidewalk and crunch my boot into the ice, the noise oddly pronounced in the silence of the night. 

Then I turn and begin to take the long way back home. 

(written november 9 2016) - after election night 

I can barely find the words right now. To all the people who are directly affected and in danger, to everyone who is emotionally mentally or physically at risk or have loved ones who are, please stay safe and reach out for support the best you can. Even as a non white, non straight, and non cis gender human being, I realise that I'm still in an incredible place of privilege to be in Canada and that isn't something to gloat or joke about. If you have any privilege in this, please take it as an opportunity to learn and understand and reach out to those who don't have that privilege.

It's not even simply the one single fact of Trump winning, it's the horrifying reality when you realise how many people have come out of the dust to support "ideals" which directly threaten and endanger the actual lives of people just like me and my friends and my loved ones, their loved ones, and many more people in vulnerable positions in modern society.

When you're part of the many groups - especially in America - heavily targeted, living under systematic, often violent oppression, this time is terrifying, isolating, infuriating and rightfully so; the racism and misogyny and homophobia, transphobia, all that and more, is rampant and horrifyingly so, and it's shocking how many ways people are collectively trying to justify it or joke about it. Neutrality and apathy is no longer an option, and has arguably never been.

However we still want to believe that acceptance and compassion and an ability to actively fight and survive together continues. This is only the beginning. Grieve, rage. Learn, act. Stick together. To the minority groups, all those I'm part of or not part of, we've fought and survived and thrived again and again through history and we will continue doing so, under any adversary. There is strength in existing. Nothing is over.

My heart goes out to Orlando, and those whose lives were lost or impacted by this. It was a horrifying, homophobic hate crime deliberately perpetuated at a prominent place of safety/acceptance for LGBT+ people. It's saddening but not surprising that amongst the inevitable talk of religion+gun control, many are neglecting to mention the targeting of innocent LGBT+ people in this crime, the impact it has on the LGBT+ community, and the undeniable role of homophobia and/or transphobia in this massacre.

The death toll is almost at 60 now, with more than 50 people injured, making it the worst gun crime in the history of the US. Do not forget that it occurred at one of the most famous gay bars, a place of safety for LGBT+ people (and we are already often at risk simply for existing.) Do not forget it occurred on Latinx night, that many there were LGBT+ people of colour, do not forget it occurred on a night where trans women of colour were publicly headlining/ running the event.

It is a time for mourning and respect - not of glorifying the killer and his name and face, but of remembering and honouring the victims and their lives, and supporting each other, and the LGBT+ community.

This is not an isolated and irrelevant incident of violence against LGBT+ minorities (such crimes are usually ridiculously under-reported by the media anyways), and certainly not the only one where the obvious role of homophobia and/or transphobia behind it is forgotten, overlooked, or excused as something else, and not the only crime with its impact on the LGBT+ community forgotten or pushed aside.

These hate crimes are only encouraged, not hindered by, a society as a whole that still normalises homophobic and transphobic language, behaviour, beliefs, and culture. It occurs in the context of a society which, in talking about crimes like this, again and again fail to acknowledge the LGBT+ context and significance in it. These tragedies don't occur in a vacuum, and the discussion of them shouldn't occur in a vacuum.

There are a lot of issues at play here, some of which I may not be fully educated enough to speak about. But what I can say, if only from my personal perspective, is that in what is undoubtedly one of the worst acts of gun violence in history, that the significance to and impact on the LGBT+ community is absolutely undeniable, and that it can't be overlooked.

A lot of us, some of whom are young, closeted, or live in an already intolerant/unsafe place, saw people just like us murdered in cold blood, and saw the public reaction to it, not all of which have been particularly respectful or kind. We're allowed to be angry, to mourn, to speak out, or to take the time we need to process something that, from any angle, is truly horrific.

Our community lost so many just in the past 48 hours. In talks of gun control and legislation and so forth, also remember where and why this crime occurred, remember the specific group of people which this crime was perpetuated against, and don't forget the significance of this to the LGBT+ community, and people of colour in the LGBT+ community.

I hope the victims rest in peace, and thoughts and prayers to their family and friends, and to everyone impacted by this. My thoughts also go out to LGBT+ people everywhere, whether you're out or not, whether you can/want to talk about this or not. It's an extremely difficult time but we're here for each other.

My two cents. I needed to talk about this, even if my thoughts have already been expressed by many already.

Meanwhile -

A helpful post with some positivity if anyone needs it: http://sportslesbian.tumblr.com/post/145837852703

The LGBT Centre of Florida/Orlando is raising money for those affected: https://www.gofundme.com/29bubytq

Remember the victims: https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemcneal/orlando-shooting-victims?bftwnews&utm_term=.diXkBxABd#.utNQJ52Jb

Something I wrote a while back, thought I'd post it.

The Fear of Forgetting
There is nothing, nothing but a deep, heavy silence left, sinking to the very bottom of the bones; lead weight in the marrow - no birdsong, no rustling of the wind and the leaves, no laughter, no buzzing of the insects, not a single sound. It is a stunningly lucid day, clearer than anything in the past, and anything that will ever be again. A bright expanse of pale blue, a simplicity and stillness so profound that it seeps under skin, holding me unmoving, quiet to the spot. There is nothing, nothing but this left.
My heart sinks and although I cannot hear a thing, not even the soft certainty of life’s slow inhale and exhale, I know my breath catches here in this moment. There are no tears, tears will not come, there is no anger, the energy will never again be born in the chest and stomach.
All that is left is the past, every moment that has led to this moment, this moment frozen in time for all of eternity. The past, the past - it is in the profound nothingness that the fear grows and grows, until it freezes my blood cold on the spot. Time wears the memories thin, sandpaper to skin, water trickling inevitably through cracks to God knows where. To somewhere it is lost forever.
God, please don’t let it be gone.
I try and hold on, a white knuckle grip to fading mist in dawn, I try and hold on to the colour of the sunrise on that first day of college, I try and hold on to the slow rumble of the air conditioning that once lulled me to sleep every night, I try and hold on to the sound of her laugh, his voice, the way my mother rolled her eyes at a forgotten joke at the dinner table, I try to hold on to the smell of burning toast in the kitchen and the sound of slippers pitter-pattering across tiled floor, the bus engines outside the window late at night, I try and try and try. That one joke a morning an eternity gone that had me laughing non stop for a half hour, the tune of a song once playing on repeat in my mind which has now faded to a distant note that is growing softer by the second, the colour of her eyes and the way they lit up that evening, the warmth of an embrace that has long gone.
Now there is nothing but the past.
Now there is only a frozen present that will no longer produce new emotions to forget the old, no longer birth new presents that will transform into old pasts, no longer create new moments to fill the spaces left by old moments constantly dying, to be forever forgotten without our notice.
And time, as it is, crawls inevitably on. With every second, corroding at what you have, washing smooth the sand on the shore.
God, now I don’t even remember the taste of honey on tongue, the smell of fresh autumn air, the sound of soft piano music downstairs, now I don’t even remember her voice or the way her laugh sounded in the bright air of dawn, now I don’t even remember a single moment of any little thing - God help me, because I cannot hold onto a single thing.
What do we have left now?

in dreams (part of the series sometimes in the dust there lies your secret)

A sunny, hazy Sunday afternoon. A stretching meadow, a light breeze lightly parting the strands of grass back and forth. Silence. You lie between the daffodils, arms spread, face to the sky. Like those snow angels you used to make as a small kid- those times, so far away. The air smells like soft mulch and mildew, a trace of hanging mist in the air. Eyes closed, unmoving, the warmth of the rays basking your skin, enveloping you in tendrils of light and heat. The cool dirt hugging your back, the whispers of earth and dust a promise, a promise for a better place and for a better time.

A long stretching hallway, converging into nothing, lit only dimly by dark blue lights, hanging heavy in the air. Doors without handles, bleach white into the gray walls. Somewhere in the walls a little boy is singing. Your footsteps make no sound as they pass over the smooth white floor. The voices echo endlessly up and down. Every step is the same, and under the dark fluorescent lights your thoughts dim and flicker, they join the chorus, the incoherent prayer of something hidden in the shadows calling for more, for a way out.

Darkness, a quiet silent peace. Far away in the distance lights are flickering, blinking shards of life placid and indifferent. The cool chill travels down flesh like pinpricks snaking into the bones and veins. Frost spreads beneath the fingertips and cobwebs through your system. You breathe out thin tendrils of warmth, floating, flying, unmoving in the vast emptiness. You close your eyes and smile.

Some dreams you don’t want to wake up from. And some dreams you simply can’t.

Language shapes communication, and it leads to shaping thoughts, ideas, actions, and ultimately culture and society as a whole. Language is extremely powerful, and while it can be used for good it can also be incredibly damaging.

Slurs aren't just simple words that "are just a joke, lighten up" and can be thrown around like they're some kind of inconsequential thing because everyone else seems to be doing it so hey it's okay! I'm not hurting anyone! (Yes- you are, by the way. You don't need to directly punch someone in the face to be propagating something harmful or negative)

Using specific words in a derogatory or negative way, whether or not you're aware of that and whether or not you're doing so with a deliberate intention to harm or to put a person or a collective group of people down, isn't just something small to brush off. Yes, it's almost inevitable to slip up or to not know that something that's part of your daily vocabulary is actually really damaging, but there's also a responsibility to educate yourself and stop using it, and if it's inconvenient for you just to simply stop saying a word it's a million times more inconvenient for the people whom that slur directly affects.

There are words out there so tainted with a history of violence and severe discrimination that you might as well be throwing a punch by using them as casually as if you were just saying hello or goodbye.

Furthermore, not just regarding slurs but regarding how some words are used- there are words out there, words supposed to be as simple and used as easily "I'm American/a student/sixteen," that have been used so long with a negative or disgusted tone and implication that there is no way that I can use them to describe myself (even though they're very much part of my identity) without my stomach churning and skin crawling. It's not funny at all. I should be able to tell someone to please stop throwing a word around as an insult or a joke without feeling like I'm the one ashamedly begging a favour and hoping that person B doesn't think I'm stuck up and just ends up laughing. There is something fundamentally skewered with that power dynamic.

It's not just what you say, it's also how you say it and how you use it.

All these slurs and words and "small things" get normalized, get passed on, get shaped into every day language and life, fuels straight into thought patterns, beliefs, and then very much into violent and toxic discrimination and stigmatization- not to mention that they can be strongly internalized by exactly the people you claim to not be hurting. Language is so extremely powerful. The connotations and messages and beliefs that underlie language is unimaginably influential. The only people who get a say in any of this is not you but the group of people for whom the word or language is directly applicable and relevant and affects.

Microaggressions (and not just in the form of slurs and so forth-though the whole point I'm trying to make here is that slurs is most definitely a hugely significant part) are reflections of much bigger structures of discrimination and indeed propagate those toxic beliefs even further-beliefs that don't just lead to occasional bullying in schools, but are pillars that uphold societal discrimination, stigmatization, it leads to whole collectives of people being looked down upon, beaten up, and killed.

Stop using and throwing around a certain word or a slur or a phrase even after you were called out on it. If you didn't know, fine, but if you've already been told and you still continue going on like it's no big deal, then it really is your problem and you are part of the problem, no matter how small. And you can very much easily stop being part of the problem at least in this way. It really isn't that difficult to stop being an asshole.

I'm talking mostly only about slurs here and how specific words are used, but many other aspects of language and how they are used in daily life, when talking about certain issues, when in certain situations and contexts, are also just as important.

You tell me to be myself. What do you mean, exactly? When-if ever-is self a constant solid pivot point, and whenever is it not a variable constantly changing, renewing, rediscovering itself, with change as certain as each passing second? If life is a constantly flowing river, then self in my eyes is less the rocks, less the banks, less the trees rooted to the sides, more the water itself, constantly in motion and never remaining still and certain at any given point. We change, grow, learn, adapt. We become new people as experiences mould us like a sculptor's hands in soft clay. Sometimes we don't, ourselves, change at all, but instead we discover ourselves, figure things out, reveal something that is a part of us that was there before but we didn't see it and realize it until now. We re-express ourselves accordingly. We become comfortable in our shifting, shedding skin. We look back on our memories and see ourselves like some not-quite stranger we encountered before in our lives, introspective deja vu. We dress ourselves up, a chameleon to our surroundings, who we are when we need to be, bleach our masks and smooth the creases at the end of each day.
You tell me to be myself. Alright. Who do I be then, the child I was several years ago, running wild in the trees and playing tag on the fields with my friends? Who do I be then, the calm and composed and in control in front of old friends and former lovers? Who do I be then, the child of my parents, checking off expectations like items on a shopping list? Who do I be then, the me that lies still and silent at a sleepless 2 am in the dark, arms folded on steadily rising and falling stomach? Who do I be then, the person I see in the mirror, not able to quite reach their touch and gaze? Who do I be then, the self alone in the bedroom burning and rotting something fierce, fighting a silent fight underneath thinning skin? Who do I be- who I think I am, who I present myself as, who I really am, who am I not? Who?
I know, there is a self within all the change, all the shifting and moulding and moving. There is a self behind all the hiding and re-expressing and adapting. There is a myself, yourself, themself. I know that we are. I know that if you dilute the ever raging water, the silt and dust and dirt and foamy rapids, you will find something there that is core, untouched, pure and distilled, flowing clear and good for eternity, you face yourself with unhindered courage. I know, I know. It's there. You're there. I'm there. We are who we are, we are all our changes and all our movement and all our selves.
You tell me to be myself. Alright.
Tell me who, and tell me how. 

Cure the feeling of insignificance one word at a time, I see it in your eyes, how they drift in the daylight wondering if what you're standing for is really right. Can I offer you some late night comfort, cough syrup triumph for all the struggles you've endured for your name? Come on, we all have felt the gnawing insecurity day after day. I tell you to grit your teeth against self deprecation scratching at your insides and rotting your gums away, look yourself in the mirror and just realise you're fighting for some sense of purpose as they say. Look around you, lift your shades and what do you see? Blinding fires burning in the recesses of our bodies, heat building between our scars and seams. I know you fear the doubt of existence, the questions that sit on your chest after you retreat to bed. I tell you to reach inside your heart, know that it's enough just trying to be good in the end. The monsters hiding you from view, the injustices killing your raging mood, it only takes a pin of light to change, I promise you soon, soon. You feel the waste of breath in your lungs, why all the terribleness? ...dear god. Feel the pressure on your bones and mould what you love a better home. In the dirt of the fight we can only believe in the blood coursing through our winding veins, in the rising light on the horizon promising a better life, another chance, calling us towards brighter days.

What’s so great about oxygen? It’s not sweet or gentle that you need it in your lungs, in your system, every living moment, breathe it in- without it you collapse and burn, your body gives up and folds in on itself. What’s so beautiful about that pointless, primal hunger, “I need you,” oh man, I’ve heard that, a thousand times over. Need like your painkillers you take on the clock, need like the alcohol you down when you can’t stop, need like a crutch to get yourself back up-I get it. I do.
What’s so great about needing? What’s so beautiful and romantic about it all? It only leaves you dry heaving for something you can’t have at 3 am, all cold sweat and empty bones.
Divorce the air from my lungs, the blood from my veins, it can do without my body- don’t need the oxygen, don’t need the medicine, it can all do without me, and I swear I can do without.

The brain is so resistant to change. It's resistant even when change is good for you- even when it's absolutely essential; even when your bad habits and trains of thought are eating away at your insides, even when they're leaving you scratching at skin in the middle of the night trying to reach an invisible itch at the core of your bones, and you know you need to stop- even then, the brain fights back.
The brain likes habits, the patterns of thought it has long since gotten used to following, habits like pre-programmed codes that are easy, that are comfortable, because who cares if it causes the system to crash and burn periodically, digging through it all trying to fix it is only going to break it even more before it fixes it- and it just doesn't want to rip its backbone down to build it back up, piece by piece, cell by cell.
But god you have to, you got to. So you rip the bandages off, your knuckles are white from bending broken bones back into place, you rewire the neurons that fire all backwards and sideways, you're burning your fingertips off in the dark for the best, to be better. You tell yourself it's worth it, it's worth it. Look into my eyes, tell me it's worth it.
I don't know what else I can say. Sometimes changing feels the worst but oh god. Sometimes it's the only way.

Sometimes I really live for those moments in between everything where you feel this really all encompassing, light feeling- not really happiness, just comfort and contentment and this belief that things are going to be okay.

That life is pretty good in between the cracks. The feeling rarely occurs when something big or dramatic happens, nothing akin to winning a lottery (not that I ever have...evidently). It's almost always those little moments; when I'm resting my head against the bus window heading home after a long day at school, when I'm watching a funny movie on iPod in a restaurant whilst eating a bowl of noodles, when I'm lounging in the library on the beanbags multitasking on a dozen things on my laptop; those late nights in my bedroom with music playing and me working steadily on whatever with the world outside dark and quiet and at peace.

It's not even a superbly positive feeling. It's bittersweet, it usually hits when I'm alone, it carries tinges of nostalgia and tentative curiosity about the future. The feeling never lasts long but it's always a more or less serendipitous occurance at times in my life. And no, it doesn't solve everything in my life, it isn't some sort of permanent epiphany. It's not, "everything is good." It's no guarantee of anything. It's just the feeling that there's the chance that everything might be okay one day, and even if it isn't, that I will be.

forest (part of the series sometimes in the dust there lies your secret)

When I was little I lived in a townhouse on the outskirts of the city, where we had a green hill in our backyard and a forest to the side. Us kids in the neighborhood, barely twelve years old, would run into the woods after school to explore. The scent of pine and soft soil would hit our noses and we would run and skip over fallen logs, past crooked trees, under bent branches- we were reckless and naïve, but so free.

There was one girl in particular who would run the forest like she was a part of it, born in it, raised in it, and I remember laughing and I remember daring each other to climb higher and higher. I would grab the next branch up and heave my small body into the fork, glancing down at the ground below with my heart in my throat. I had never felt happier. I would look up and she would be a few feet higher already, grinning down- a gleeful grin and we together propelled ever higher. I trusted the trees like they were solid ground- we pushed our limits, daring a cosmic hand to come and knock us both to the ground so many fatal meters below- I trusted with my heart on my palm as we got to the top, perching on the thinning branches and glancing down at the cozy neighborhood below us. The setting sun would peek through the fluttering leaves, and we were happy.

We climbed from tree to tree, branch to branch, wild kids who had too much fun, who escaped from parents’ eyes and let loose. We had our fantasies, our daydreams of castles and grand adventures, but we also had the little touch of magic- we got to live it, every day.

But the forest was more than an imaginary kingdom for us, it was also a place of comfort and safety when there was nowhere else.

Sometimes, I would go alone. It would be early afternoon and I would creep out the back door and across the field and into the trees; I would settle onto the logs into the dirt, the dip in the ground where I would be hidden from most of the outside world. I would get my jeans beaten up and covered in dirt, and back then I didn’t care about that or the bugs or anything. I would draw shapes in the dirt with a broken branch and stay in that little hollow, safe. The trees were guardians towering above, majestic and loyal, unmoving, promising me that nothing would get me- the monsters and shadows held back.

But it couldn’t last forever. The day came when I learned that I was moving, bidding goodbye to my friends, bidding goodbye to my little kingdom in the woods, and it was with an excited but a scared heart that I moved from trees and hills to towering skyscrapers and roaring cars on curving roads. I was a stranger amongst the neon lights, and although I settled down and grew up, sometimes I would think back of the place I loved so much as a kid.

One day, several years later, I flew back for a visit.

Apprehensive, I went back to my old neighborhood. Our old house had been torn down; what remained of the townhouses me and her looked over on the tree tops were piles of dirt and logs on the empty green field. I headed to the forest; most of the trees had been removed; what was left was a small woods, and I picked my way through, feeling the gaping dissonance between the me the last time I was here and the me now. I stood where the clearing I used to be, where I used to hide and make up wandering stories in my head, away from everything. I stood where the tall trees had stretched towards the blue skies, the trees where me and her had climbed to the top, above it all. I craned my head upwards, stretching my arms, feeling too big for my skin. I breathed in the musty scent of pines, now fading, and turned, accidentally tripping on a tree stump hidden in the grass; I paused and sat down, grabbing the nearest branch and drawing it across the soil. Taking a deep breath, I laid back, staring at the floating clouds above. Maybe I was older now, bigger, smarter, but I felt the distance between me and the skies, the trees, the plants, in a way I did not when I was a kid.  I shrank and shrank, into the soil, tangling with the grass, deeper and deeper, and I thought maybe I heard the voice of a little kid laughing, but I couldn’t be sure.

Maybe it was just the wind.

It's super late. I don't know why I'm making this post. This is just going to be my brain throwing up onto a metaphorical page.

Sometimes you just have to stick it through and figure things out. Sometimes your brain gets all scrambled and you get confused- about everything all at once. The puzzle pieces are everywhere and you can't find half of them and you think you're going to spend your whole life on the floor trying to find answers. You reach your hand inside of your chest and you find a million wires tangled in knots- you're looking for that one bad signal but you're not sure which wire to cut or to tie because everything's everywhere. It's exactly like the time you stuffed two earphones into your pocket and when you got them out again you couldn't tell which was which and ended up breaking both of them trying to separate the two. You wonder if your stomach is going to feel like knots and if whatever's inside of your skull is going to rattle and scrape against your head forever. It sounds oddly relaxing sometimes but you wish it'd just go away, really. You're playing some kind of futuristic chess game with yourself and you don't even know the rules. Somehow the other side of you is smarter than this side of you, which makes no sense but you play along anyways. Sometimes you get so close to threading that string through that needle looking through your epiphany only to have one shake of a hand slip everything away again.

Oh well, you know? Oh well not in a sad or apathetic or resigned kind of way, in a- yeah sometimes it can get pretty messy but oh well because you know you'll climb out the other end sooner or later kind of way. It'll happen. You don't even realize it sometimes- it doesn't take a miracle or a waking-up-one-morning-and-somehow-everything-falls-into-place kind of day- but eventually you look back, maybe after a long long time of hauling your ass down the road in a state of pure exhaustion, and you realize that the tangle you've been trying to take apart for years has slowly unwinded and you're feeling alright- better than alright actually. Or maybe it's still there but it's not such a bad thing, maybe you've made your peace- I'm not going to pretend to know anything about anything but sometimes you just gotta stick it through and see what happens- see if maybe things work out you know? See if things get figured out.

clearing (part of the series sometimes in the dust there lies your secret)
My skateboard clatters against the pavement as the cards and suburban houses whip past frame by frame, in a film scene I do not care for. Music blasts through my headphones and I finish my granola bar half heartedly, wind blowing my dark hair backwards and all around. It’s a cool sunny Friday afternoon and my schoolbag hangs heavy on my shoulders. Both school and home are a few miles the other way, but I have no intention of returning any time soon.
I stuff the granola bar wrapper into my pocket and take a gulp of Red Bull, watching my surroundings turn from neatly trimmed hedges and the smell of barbeque into rolling hills, thickening trees, the scent of pines in the breeze. I turn down a beaten dirt path, jumping off and tucking my board under my arm as dirt transitioned into rocks and clumps of grass and flowers sprouting through the cracks. Ten minutes and one can of Red Bull later I find myself in the small clearing hidden by shrubbery and young trees, branches curving into a protective wall. I drop my bag to the ground to lean against a set of thick tree roots and dip my hands in the small running brook; the ice cold water hits my skin and I splash my face gratefully.
I honestly don’t know why I return here all the time. I only found this place by accident when I ran from class a few months back being physically unable to stay in the room anymore. No one followed me, and no one has of yet, so I let myself slump into the dirt listening to the water bubbling and letting the soft breeze whisper past my skin. I turn off my music and throw my headphones and silent phone into my backpack.
The shadows elongate and change around me as I hand out breadcrumbs to occasional birds landing by, chest and stomach hurting but enjoying the temporary reprieve, the calm. I stretch, limbs hurting as I do. It seems that every part of me aches, slow pain that spreads in the veins to the bones.
I don’t know where else to go.
The light between the branches begins to fade slowly, then more rapidly. I only open another can of Red Bull and down it in a few goes, crumpling the can and stuffing it back into my bag. I take a deep breath and put my headphones back on, the music quiet enough so I can just hear the water in the background, the distant birdsong harmonizing with the beats and riffs. I sling my bag over my shoulder, grab my board, and instead of turning onto the dirt path back to the main road, I pick my way through the undergrowth, ducking beneath thorns and leaves.
The sun sets behind me, but I can only keep walking, through the trees, through the bushes, beside the ever running water.
Did I ever have any other choice?

puzzle pieces (part of the series sometimes in the dust there lies your secret)
There was that day I went over to my grandparents’ place, and my grandmother placed a puzzle box on the table and asked me to piece it together with her.
Alright, I said, and on the dinner table we poured out all the little jagged pieces, and somehow in an hour or so they would fit together to create a lovely suburban garden with a little girl sitting next to a fountain, watching butterflies peacefully, a snapshot stuck in time.
We got to the last few pieces in the box and I see one on the side of the table. It looked slightly odd, like the edges weren’t quite right; the color almost matched the puzzle but not quite- an off shade of green that subtly stood out from the rest.
I asked her what it was, it didn’t seem like it was part of it.
Grandma laughed and put it to one side. We fit rest of the pieces in just right; there was only one gap left. She picked up the piece and told me that it wasn’t part of this puzzle in the first place; she had bought the box from a second hand sale and expected that the previous owners had gotten it mixed up somehow.
I took it from her and placed it in the empty space at the corner of the puzzle. With some pressure, it fit, pressing uncomfortably into the curves and jagged edges just barely lining up with the rest of the picture.
I found it funny how it fit into a bigger picture it didn’t quite belong in- able to pass by and blend in but like a dissonant chord with one note out of place, sure it was barely noticeable, but it wasn’t quite comfortable either.
The picture was complete, sure, but it just didn’t feel right to me.
I wondered if people could be like that too-you could press and mold and they could fit, but it would never be right, would never be fully comfortable. I wonder how many people felt forced into place by a hand they couldn’t control. I wondered if people could spend their whole lives searching for the place they fit, they place they could make sense.
If I could, I would put all the misplaced puzzle pieces into where they could belong and into the picture they could feel right. Didn’t everyone deserve that?
I also wondered if maybe people weren’t the pieces, that maybe they were the whole picture, and that some piece-sometimes all the pieces- would always feel out of place.
But maybe it was meant to be that way.

blurred (part of the series sometimes in the dust there lies your secret)
The ground swoops beneath me, the voices- the din of shouts, laughter, cursing- a crescendo into static in my ears. I grip the cord of my headphones, a lifeline of sorts, and let my gaze sweep around the surroundings. Familiar faces blur and fade, my eyes an unfocused lens; I stand perfectly still as the colors before me swirl and collapse like water poured on a paint palette.
I feel the colors drain from their faces, the hues and tones slipping and flowing down into the drains; into whites and blacks and grays and my head spins, my skin pales, things fall away.
Someone is shouting at me, hey you forgot your stuff, but I’m already sprinting across the playground, a race against time, I race up the stairs I race into the room I crash into the chairs I fall against the window I let my lungs fill and then collapse I let my eyes close, a vast static blackness.
I listen to my heartbeat slow,
I grab onto the windowsill,
I let the moment pass,
I open my eyes, let the colors come back, let it all blur into focus.
The sharp, accented edges of the witnesses to a crime scene.
Silence.

I think one of the strangest forms of happiness is the bittersweet, almost heartbreakingly melancholy one.
When I was on the bus on the long ride home I was looking out the window at the sea we were passing, and I saw several small fishing boats- almost canoes, really, and people sprawled on them, drifting peacefully, fishing lines held lazily in water. The sun was bright, dancing off the still surface, and all I felt when I watched them, laughing, chatting, drifting, resting- was this really bittersweet feeling that I couldn’t pinpoint. It spread through my chest with such intensity and strength yet I couldn’t articulate it.
It felt like the ache of those memories you couldn’t keep with you no matter how hard you tried. It felt like recognising how temporary and fleeting everything was but that only made it more significant.
It’s the feeling you get on long car rides staring out the window. It’s the feeling you get out with your friends at the beach and you’re so happy for that moment even though the moments never last. It’s the feeling you get travelling on a plane to a place you haven’t seen in years. It’s the feeling you get sitting alone looking over the city with a drink in hand and music playing from your earphones. It’s the feeling you get hearing your favourite song played at a concert. It’s that feeling.
That untouchable bittersweet happiness, of feeling your place in the world, of feeling so deeply for those temporary moments that fade into memories and dreams in the back of our minds.

Memories...looking at something through water. 

Distorted and rippled and blurred. 

You hold the water in your hands, memories, memories, memories. No matter how much you try to cling to them, water seeps through the cracks, down the drain, into oblivion, as new memories are poured in. Old and new mingle, and you hold onto them tighter, water sloshing around your palm and inevitably seeping out from the fissures in between.

The constant movement, the change and the flow, distorts your vision until you are not sure what you see...if it's really there at all.

But it is there, it is there.

Eventually, the water runs out. 

And at the end of the day, maybe there are a few drops of left, of the handful you had in the beginning. And drops from the past, the present, ever floating, scattered throughout time.

The water seeps through the cracks, down the drain.

The hands fade, vanish, and the memories evaporate, curl like smoke into the atmosphere, drifting off into the universe.