Who's this image you hold onto?
Is she even what she was?
Vibratory imitations' limitations,
the senselessness of touch.
Oh, there's a hundred conversations
to be overheard each night?
Well there’s a thousand ways to watch her
wear her scarf in dual light.
But these all are only codas
and their rhymes are obvious.
When she's saying "we" right through you,
you insist on hearing "us."
Is your diary a record
or a requiem of sorts,
composed of notes and hopes and half-truths
and misremembered quotes?
She was watching every sunset
every night from the west cliffs
(or, from beyond the frond where you crouched,
you hallucinated this).
You can hammer every mirror
till your own hands start to fade --
until the skin is sloughing off them,
till the tides regenerate --
but she'll still be a reflection
of just who you want to see,
and not who you'll ever be with
or who anyone will be.
So go down to the swamplands.
Eat the redead fish until
the radiation sickness cures you,
if anything ever will.
Because there's nothing as fulfilling
as the viewing of the end
when you are certain
it’ll be the beginning again.
“Strangers” is packed with wonderfully menacing electro-goth—late-night horror movie music for vampire dance parties. Bandcamp New & Notable May 8, 2023
Dreamy vocals, pulsing rhythms, and eerie synths come together to create luxe but ominous atmospheres on the latest from Toronto's Praises. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 3, 2021