A 2023 Retrospective

The washing machine runs through another cycle as I sit facing the living room after my third cigarette post-sunset. I’ve ran through my own cycles, attempting to cleanse my mind throughout the day. Each act of relief was met with an equal, if not heavier, amount of exasperation. I care for myself only to abandon myself once again.

I sit with my right leg shaking, running and searching for the purpose of this text. I’ve written loads of poetry and essays. Littered my notebook and notes app with ideas and hyperbolic observations of sentiment in such emotionless states. But through it all—these past nine months—I have salvaged nothing to briefly immortalize via the internet.

That is not to say that there won’t be artifacts from this time recovered in the years to come. But I have felt less urgency—more intentionality—to share the whims of my worries. And with that notion, I suppose this piece will take on the role of a widespread update rather than a creative statement. Pardon the self-indulgence.

But before we talk current enterprises, experiences, desires… let us retrace the steps that got us here, shall we?

The last writing I shared was from June 24th, 2022 (aptly titled Jun 24). In the time since, I completely abandoned the realm of digital connection. I left social media and turned inward, falling onto the dull blade I so carefully placed before myself. My eyes shut, the world darkened around me. I deleted my notes app, deleted contacts. I hid notebooks from myself. I stopped reaching out to friends through written word such as texts or letters. I ceased writing in its entirety.

As the seasons changed, I felt the chill of a harsh winter leaving my veins. I awoke dewy eyed and, admittedly, worse off to a new year. The warm touch of friends was then perceived as a shaky hand to a frozen pole. I spiraled. I repeatedly crashed my car. I drank my worries away and forsake the lips I craved. I became more than just a shell to myself… I became a hollow vessel. A pile of shards, hurting any one and every one near me.

In the early aughts of February—a month too dear to my heart—I began to feel a breath in my chest. A whisper of life that felt fickle, divine. I expelled my worries to those that would listen and crushed the habits that kept me from standing. I found introspection my prodigal son and began to remove the blade I had left protruding from my body.

I shared a small collection of scrapped voice memos from July 2022 onto my bandcamp on Valentine’s Day; and shouldered my own comatose body from the rubble. The months that followed hit like a freight train. I was buzzing—if not buzzed—shuffling about my life with a carelessness as shifty as my own desire.

Turning my life to the reclusive, I picked up my pen and found comfort in the transience. I allowed the wind to whisk me wherever it might lead and decried my home for being anything more than a place to lay my head. My body and mind became a commoditized object, albeit this time intentional, and I embarked on an endless search for indulgence in pleasure and self-righteousness. I learned a lot about myself. I lost a lot of myself.

In the midst of this existential, tectonic shift, I found myself cocooned as in creative spirits. That sacred relationship between divinity and objectivity. I embraced being a vessel for these revelations; carving words and sounds out of this newly fractured space.

All I will say of this now is a fully idealized project came to light, itching my brain with colors and images that turned to touch and sound, turned to diaristic writings and rotting teeth. When will this see the light of day? Time will tell. But I hold it close to my chest, working steadfast. For when a statement is to be made, all else is arbitrary in the interim. My purpose of this calendar year has not been to streamline and publicize my experiences. It has been to turn out all the lights, find holiness in solitude—solace in silence. To fill my lungs with all that is around me and recognize that that is not me. To exhale and to pause. To feel the emptiness in these moments and know that it is not permanent. A creative detour, a personal reprieve.

As the fire of this process rages on, I find myself returning to the extraneous spaces to clean up shop and take inventory. While the sharing of any scraps is wholly pointless… I wish to, once again, archive the catalog of these works.

Allow it to be a precursor for what is all to come. May it corral the wandering ideas of the past nine months, preparing the space for what is to come. The outliers, the experiments. The darkness of late night deep dives and masquerading. The time before the party; the time amidst its wrath. The unlocking of a familiar door before one undresses and is left bare and alone. In this moment, do you stare before yourself or turn away?

These eighteen writings were written in the empty space between reckless abandonment and before I had the gall to look myself in the eyes. The process of confrontation is a repeated endeavor. It’s not about getting it on the first time, it’s about if you choose to try again. As time passed and other ideas took flight, I returned to these stories and traumas and reconciled with the truth that I wrote but my discretion had lapsed.

I wrote circles around myself before I understood what I needed to say, what I needed to hear. It’s in this process that we find enlightenment and healing. And by trial and error, through consciousness and intentionality, we find an understanding of our self and the life we live.

Until the fruits of these labors are ripened to share, may you enjoy these half-realized ideas of the past nine months. A collection I feel to aptly title PRE CONFESSIONALS.

Take care of yourself, my friend.