Well girl your
Mouth is full
Can’t take one more bite
That’s what.
You like some
Fat little squirrely thing
Can’t get enough
That’s what is
What.
Saving it for later?
What later?
What save?
Allow me to introduce you to Now
Now girl Now
Ain’t no later bullshit
Ain’t no future bullshit
Them’s for rich people
Planning
Saving
Future
Bank
What do you think this is exactly?
You think you on some yacht?
You feel the breeze
You sailing
The wind touching you
You feel touched
Snap out of it Now
Snap
And don’t make me the bitch
Don’t give me that look all sour
I ain’t the one who did it
I’m just the messenger
Welcome to The ALIVE hour.
Illustration: Shannon Colon
Audio mixing / narrative / music: Chloe Riley
Things found in real life
My own hand, waving back in the evening light of the lampshade
The little pink baby stitches of this mended shirt
This red against this white
Things found on the internet
This essay “Some of Us Did Not Die” (passed along via my now-Vivaldi inclined friend Katie):
When the pandemic began, I couldn’t listen to what I used to listen to. Songs, especially their lyrics, from before the pandemic felt like a mockery, worse than denial. I didn’t have words for what we were going through. So I stopped listening to words.
I had to empty my mind of words so that my heart could learn a new language.
The song Wichita Lineman. Have you ever listened to this song? Kind of sappy, with that sound of being right on the cusp of the 70s. Strings. Haunting for being so superficially uplifting. It pulls you towards it.
According to this, it contains the “greatest musical couplet ever written,” but you be the judge.
He said we hang on to songs because they are part of our “identity construction,” and that we are always trying to use them to get back to our lost paradise.
The ALIVE hour