Well girl yourMouth is fullCan’t take one more biteThat’s what.You like someFat little squirrely thingCan’t get enoughThat’s what is What.Saving it for later?What later?What save?Allow me to introduce you to NowNow girl NowAin’t no later bullshitAin’t no future bullshitThem’s for rich peoplePlanningSavingFutureBankWhat do you think this is exactly?You think you on some yacht?You feel the breezeYou sailingThe wind touching youYou feel touchedSnap out of it NowSnapAnd don’t make me the bitchDon’t give me that look all sourI ain’t the one who did itI’m just the messenger

Welcome to The ALIVE hour.

Illustration: Shannon ColonAudio 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.

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