This piece consists of me on the tuba and vocals, accompanied by a looped drum track. (Lyrics/words beneath audio)

 

Ain’t it just the worst thing reminiscing on moments of warm light

When you felt like you really mattered

A temperate swell rises up from the pit of your stomach, stopping off to fill up your heart, ‘til it reaches its destination ever so slightly rouging your cheeks

And you wonder, at the time, why? Why me?

I’m not talking about love, I guess I’m talking about purpose and meaning

Like, what it is that you are feeling is known and it’s important

All warm, like

For a glimmer there was a reason for you

And I say it’s the worst because the retrospective realisation of that moment in its entirety reveals that it was never you that mattered

Not what you felt

You are and were just a small part of a bigger truth

Yet it meant everything to you at that time

Just that feeling, you know

An all-encompassing warmth

And I can’t now turn out that light or decided whether indeed I should

It doesn’t do me any good to hold on to false memories, but the feeling in me was real, that warmth

It’s the light that I wanna see my life by

I struggle with that though, because, you know, it’s the worst, ain’t it?

But who I am to try to destroy the mycorrhizal network of hope that feeds my human existence

I am a nothing part of everything

Fully assimilated into the system of desire and need

I want what you want

And have not what you take for granted

But granted, I try as a live and die in equal measure

Softening the harshness with gentle highs

A necessary dulling of my feverish resistance to the network

Don’t struggle, they say

Everyone will grow within the system that feeds us

On the inside, right

With or without will

But in my heart and in my mind I’m ever seeking out that light

The gentle warm light

It’s the worst, right