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lyrics

6.

i think these things all at once, or maybe they are kaleidoscope overlapping one another. i listen to the ensemble of fingernails rip my voice from my throat and wonder why am i the instrument of approval? Why am i the rite of performance. A way to shift from themselves. A way to harmonize with the notes they sing. A voice i house but cannot use. A song i sing but am not allowed to strum. The bodies still frozen mid jump shot. i turn to the friend that speaking on my behalf. Maybe it’s just in my stead. Is it for me instead. Maybe it’s just for me. Before i can say anything, they look at me seeking approval after successfully warding off what they describe as a terrible human. My blank stare prompts one of them into telling a joke:

Two black kids go to shoot hoops before 8 o clock. Their parents tell them to be home by eight or nine? What time do they make it home?
i squirm and try signal discomfort in a semi half-ass attempt to stop the joke or at least minimize the joke’s harm to no avail.

They don’t.

i use the strings they never let me use. i say my truth in the brassy horn sounds. The brightness of every timpani strike. The glockenspiel chime. The snare syncopates in rhythms that are organic. All of this in a way i know they will notate, contextualize, notarize and sign off on the appropriation of the sound of my voice as it hits the brain wires.

i hear the words as they leave my tongue. Watch them scurry out of the cracks in its underuse. The blinds fling wide. Embalmed in light. i scream. Whether to the void or to the sound of them panicking at the instrument that played their own song. A piano that no longer be written for and banged out their own melody using its own hammer. Writing its own truth.

i know somewhere Moe is sitting in an armchair whether this side or the next with the Saginaw News opened to the middle. The pages crinkled in the absence of fear. His eyes on the third page. Somewhere in the bottom right hand corner. The headline will read: Soloist Explodes on Stage. It will only be followed by a brief two sentence explanation. It will read:

Soloist, known for bowed the chalkboard with fingernails explodes mid-performance. When asked why they only could say “i know it sounds like shit, but at least it’s mine.”

They will omit most of my five-minute explanation, reframe my syntax, and strip back my diction to confine me to its two by two slot. It’s fine. i relish in even its slight visibility. And even now, years past the explosion, i think of Moe. Imagine the drive back and forth in a hell i never wish on anyone. Even now, i think of his dog waiting up the night to see him walking through the door. Even now, here, i can only see the picture of his wife reflecting the static of the television. It will only reflect the static. Or some other electrical feedback that now must be substitute for a human eye until the power is cut.

And in the dark--still, even now--i think of the kids sitting on the curb. The sound of Colt 45 and chiming against another. They celebrate the last nights in a place they call home. No car stereo able to play loud enough to reach the city. No ceiling to house the children of a city built on them, but never for them. Just trap hymns played off a cell phone speaker. We dance, smoke and laugh as we see fit. No cop is going to come down here to send us home. Ain’t no cop left to call. They were the first to leave. Took their Dodge Chargers as payment for our tax increase and drove to Midland. And besides if someone did call, there isn’t a home for us to go back to.

i look to the right, the Stop and Shop is closed. Maybe it only exists as an after image and no longer is standing. Just memory fills in the empty space. i know the barbershop Moe owned on the corner of Fourth and Janes Street is reduced to a moss-in-cracked-cement parking lot and we still gather there if only to exhale a river smoke from our lungs to watch it flow into the vast nothing.

credits

from empty space​(​s​)​., released November 24, 2020

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guero Midland, Michigan

Hi my name is Thomas and I make music that feels like a middle schooler at the 7-11 mixing genres at the slurpee station. It comes out alright.

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