1. |
Two Brothers
06:22
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Dear Brother,
Will you read this 18th draft? I hope that you do.
I am lost in this dark hole again.
Gaia is angry; we’ve killed her Ka
I need your light to shine here
To climb out and finally reappear
This darkness blinds me
So help me climb
(IT’S JUST CALLED TWO BROTHERS)
Shine your light and throw a rope
Pull me out!
(MAKE THIS LAST FOREVER)
You are my only chance
Brother, keep me safe
Wandering without light
I wish I possessed your might
So I can read what I write
Find me lost in Rhea’s mom
Losing the ebb and flow
I fall and fall and fall and fall
I need your light to shine here
To climb out and finally reappear
This darkness blinds me
So help me climb
(IT’S JUST CALLED TWO BROTHERS)
Shine your light and throw a rope
Pull me out!
(CAN WE LAST FOREVER)
You are my only chance
Brother, keep me safe
AND HELP ME
Help me climb out!
Help me climb out!
Help me climb out!
Help me climb out!
HELP
ME
CLIMB
OUT
HELP
ME
CLIMB
OUT
[LOVE,
Blinding Rays Upholding Hope]
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2. |
Mycorrhizal Abuse
06:55
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I barely feel you there
You keep ripping more from me
My limbs, my branches, are losing their placement
From the abuse you take on me
We used live symbiotically
Living in tandem
Now you’re setting me ablaze
I don’t know who you are anymore
You are tearing me apart
My limbs can’t grow
I gave you everything I am
Yet your fungus fades me
I wish you would replant
And stop taking from me
This body is becoming barren
I’ll soon be nothing
And with me, the death of all you know.
I won’t sustain this poison for long
Your caps swirling and twisting around me
Spiraling into my fiery core
You are tearing me apart
You’ve boxed me in
I gave you everything I am
Yet your fungus fades me
I wish you would return, regrow
And not take everything
This body has become barren
I’ll soon be nothing
I can’t feel my limbs
I can’t feel my limbs
I can’t feel my limbs
I can’t feel my limbs
You’ve cut me to my core
I’m nothing—the horror
Your end is my end and my end is your end and your end is my end and my end is your end and your end is my end and my end is your end and your end is my end and my end is your end
And I often find myself wondering through the roots beneath your feet if you would even give me a second thought. Your poisonous fungus is taking its toll on me. I’m just a resource for you, despite the love and home I've given you. You feel empowered when you tear me down and leave me feeling nothing--i remember that first portion you took when times were more simple. Now, the memory of your constant anger haunts me, the bruises on my mountains scar me, but if you kill me—if I fade—you too will follow.
So give me more
Or I will bring horror
The spiral inside
Is the darkest thing you’ll find
As you’ve carved my heart out
Your end is my end and my end is your end
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3. |
Awaiting Your Shadow
04:11
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Sinking into depravity,
Gravity and stillness leap away from me
And bury themselves into the sea
Afraid of fear itself, privation will set them free.
You’re too scared to jump!
The fire burning mother will catch up!
I’m here to show you fear in a planet of dust.
Discover you’re all turning to rust.
All sing the hopelessness you’ve kept inside.
All kill the despair and forge a rising tide.
No one comes back from the brink
Without a scar prompting them to think.
Falling into a wasteland, where even I can’t save you,
Drowning in the plastic sea rotting with my mother’s bone
Take your leap as I signal the queue
Outside of fear itself, now we reap what they have sown
No one comes back from the sky without a scar that makes them die.
Consume the wildfires as the desert reclaims its place
Feast on the words of the innocent
dying as you laugh
Slam down the disappearing islands.
Drink up what you have brewed,
the trembling earth that stews
The turbulent winds unlike how they flew
Dear mother, can you hear me? I don’t know if they will stop.
I’m sorry to be your shadow and not hold you up.
Jump! Jump! I want to see you crash below.
Jump! Jump! You who killed my home.
Jump! Jump! Stop destroying mom
Jump! Jump! The one place we have known.
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4. |
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Twisting and reaching up
Felt through the cambium
Wonder if we will join it
When our time is up here and now
Do you feel the life: the pulse traveling in roots?
My hand is on its grooves
I sense it. I espy it.
Gazing for connections to the past;
That’s all the phloem knows
Witnesses to sublime and hell
I sense it.
Somewhere alive beneath us
Somewhere breathing beneath us.
You cut, it dies. You cut and it dies.
You cut, it dies. You cut and it dies.
You cut, it dies. You cut and it dies.
You cut, it dies. You cut and it dies.
Twisting and reaching up
Felt through the cambium
Wonder if we will join it
When our time is up here and now
The thing is alive, so you
Cut and we die—committed genocide!
I sense it. A collective. Protect it. Alive.
It’s all of us, now we will never know.
It’s all of us. Where would I stay if I heard you?
Do you feel the life: the pulse traveling in roots?
My hand is on its grooves
I sense it. I espy it.
Gazing for connections to the past;
That’s all the phloem knows
Witnesses to sublime and hell
Do we join it? The cambium where we finally rest.
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5. |
Bloody Sundays
04:34
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Unwarranted deaths on my land again
Why do they keep doing this?
Streets painted as a bloody mess
Of my children—those made speechless
Conflicts with the gas of death
My surfaces losing breath
[Chorus]
Burn your oppressive synthetic history
Start again
My limbs will rise from ashes
Against those abusing my lamb/land
Their world, I, won’t last forever
Their Mom, I, won't last forever
Stand together to stop the sanctioned murders
Stand together to stop the sanctioned murders
And then we’ll listen, praise them, their lives matter
More than what you think
More than what you say
More than property
The death of all you see
I, the roots, am sick of witnessing bloody Sundays
Say the names of your murdered
[lost in the cacophony of names and voices]
<{(Your silence approves their violence)}>
One long Sunday extending through my bark and leaves
Say their names before they’re lost
in the fires of histories
Say their fucking names
Killed without shame
You only see the flames
But now we’ll listen, praise them, their lives matter
More than what you think
More than what you say
More than property
The death of all you see
Burn your oppressive synthetic history
Start again
My limbs will rise from ashes
Against those abusing my lamb/land
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6. |
Fade
02:30
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I’m fading, fading away.
I’m losing ontology.
What is my being?
I’m losing all I can see.
Terra, was that our name?
I can’t remember as I fade away.
What is our name?
I’m fading, fading away.
I’m losing ontology.
How am I being
As my loved ones are bleeding me.
You or I?
Who am I?
You or I?
Who am I?
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7. |
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Dear Lost Loved One, We cannot last forever. I miss you and feel you, yet you are not with me. You asked for no songs of grief and tears. I’m trying not to write with sadness here
i try and i try and i try to write the praises of lives under her sky before we die.
I’ve often wondered about the way we still feel those we’ve lost, such as you. Can you whisper with the wind so that I can feel at peace again? This is not a song of grief and tears; this is only what I feel with reminiscence.
i sense you. i espy you. i sense you. i espy you. i sense you. i espy you. i remember you in your absence.
All of these memories, all of these memories fill me with your spirit, joy, and grief. Is this melancholy, or is this pure nirvana? Or, is this what we feel when we’ve joined it all?
Lost loved one, I’ll carry on without you. I’ll feel you in the reels of nature that brought tears when I think of you in the happiest times.I know this is right.
after these drafts of letters, i’m reminded of how we live: we live in the present without knowledge of its end. perhaps we continue on and you’ll hear these letters that we sing:
i miss you and love you. to everlasting life.
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Speech Act Raleigh, North Carolina
Mad tunes from sad goons. Post-Metal.
travis//bass + vocals
evan//drums
colten//guitar
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