Reborn, Musically

 May 2018

          7 is the number of times I thought about killing myself today. Mornings are the worst. Night time glitters like Gatsby's house, like cocaine, like diamonds bunched up on a chain, like the Instagram filters girls use to make themselves look cuter than they really are. 7PM there's bright lights, bright ideas and a fuck ton of weed. 7AM rolls around, and it all turns black, the vibe I mean. My stomach hurts, my neck aches, my brain hurts, I have too many assignments to do but not enough time in the day to do them all. I'm alone, completely alone. This is the most devastating part. This is the part that might kill me. 7 minutes is the amount of time it takes to put on Odesza and smoke a joint. This becomes the most exciting part. This is the part that will save me: Music.
          I'm 23 years old and don't have many friends. I've partied with sexy Namibians and Zimbabweans, I've talked about America's growing pharmaceutical problem with Indians at a bar in Vietnam, I've eaten fried Camembert cheese, I've read Nabokov and Dostoyevsky, I've slept in cars, on boats, on frat house floors, in the woods in the middle of a blizzard snow-storm with no tent. There was a lot of noise, but no music. A lot of people, but no friends. Hip-hop became one of the few things I carried with me over the years. This makes sense because "hip-hop is not separate from the people," legendary artist Erykah Badu said in an interview with Vulture, "it goes to where the people go and what moves people is vibration." This explains why I spent the last year and a half of high school listening to Flatbush Zombies and smoking cigarettes behind an abandoned building. All my friends were there at the time.
          I listen to all kinds of music, and in between all the different genres I like there's a disconnect that's no different from the disconnect within me. As of late my aura and my essence don't quite match up. My aura is edgy and abrasive and sometimes even bitchy. "Give 'em hell," she thinks. She breathes in gold and light pink glitter but exhales mean puffs of black that reek of uncovered insecurities and unmanaged mental health issues. She listens to Big Pun, to Twista, to Devin the Dude when she wants to chill. My essence is compassionate and generous and so, so sweet. She makes wishes on dead dandelions and sleeps in the same bed as her mom when her stepdad goes out of town. She stops to smell the flowers and sobs like a baby when getting her first tattoo. She listens to Taylor Swift, to Charli XCX, to Grimes when she wants to feel sprightly. She believes in goddesses and masturbates to sex scenes from romantic comedies. Andre 3000 claims he's "seen [his] aura hop out [his] torso and hit her backward," and I swear lately I see the same thing. I've been saying shit I don't mean, I've been lashing out. My aura is overtaking my essence. Ms. Badu once wore a tuning fork as a septum ring because she's always checking her vibrations, and lately I've been using music to help me do the same. It's a funky time, emotionally. I put on Kendrick or UGK and no longer bump to the beat and nod along to the lyrics. I no longer dream of those glittery nights. A shift is beginning to occur...

December 2018

          I didn't think of killing myself once today. I woke up to heavy rain and dark clouds but somehow felt lighter than the iced coffee I picked up from Starbucks. I sang along to Amy Winehouse as she crooned "what's inside her never dies," but I know she got it wrong. Shifts can occur all the time. Life is beautiful but random and inconsistent. I know because I'm watching my aura and my essence grow closer together in real time. The olanzapine, klonopin, and music mingle in my brain to bring me closer to who I want to be, closer to the woman I see in the mirror who I no longer look at like a stranger. I'm sobbing as I write this because I have something now I lost long ago: hope, and it's making me want to put on Ariana Grande's "no tears left to cry," and dance.
          Music changes us. It makes me sweeter, more compassionate, more gentle with myself. It just makes sense. My facebook status says I'm in a relationship with myself, but music is the love of my life, just like it is for Ms. Badu. I still don't know exactly where I'm going, but I know now I'm moving forward with music. I put on 1999 by Charli XCX and look in the mirror, smiling at what I see. I see a young woman with big plans, messy hair, and a new found love for mornings. That's all I am in this moment, and that's all I need to be.