17. GET BUTTER. [I_NY.]

i found this bird with a broken wing about my doorstep— I see. Would you happen to know anything about that? Your—doorstep? Your bird. Who said it was my bird? Ours then, shall we? Anandar taught me explicitly how to go about being many places at once; I can be both. You're a puppy! If I was, I'd be a pit bull! Cute dog. [malicious] Oh! He bites. Where are you taking me? To your mother. I haven't seen you in 40 years. Has it been 40 years already? You tell me. Timekeeper. Now where are we? There was bass inside of me. The hurt started over in my heart, pulling a pressure, building up and then mounting at my throat, and in the back of my eye— haunting. I pulled somewhere between my ear and the back of my nose, pressing in on my eye with one hand to release the pressure— which had been lately, appearing as brightly as a white light at times, and in some ways it almost seemed as if I was some kind of star—not the kind on earth, but the kind in the actual sky. A bright white light. Still, it hurt, and the pressure had come in all kind of pains from headaches to outbursts of tears, deep breaths so deep that my entire mind and body would reset, shut off and then come on again as if I were a light, or some kind of computer— hard flashes of other worlds, and sometimes songs—but mostly, lately, just tears out of almost nowhere, if I didn't know any better—and I did, at least kind of— know where they were coming from. At least kind of. As I clipped the back of my ear, a heavy lull of deep bass I had never quite heard before began vibrating lowly as if it was what do become of me— some sort of astonished, I removed the grip from my ear and waited a moment, then placed the pressure back over the same area—and to my suprise, there was, some sort of deep bass radiating—not from the outside, but within. As sensitive to incoming frequency as I was, this might have something to do with it. It hadn't mattered much in awhile— I was almost definitely in some sort of block from my music, the inspiration seemed to have vanished into the night, and though with it had gone some harsh ties that needed to be cut, here came so another set of tasks, and talents—which seem to have been hidden or at the very least perched in the shadows unyet to the calling of my awakening. I could either go to the Drew Barrymore show, or The Daily Show, but I couldn't do both; either way, I knew that if there was something I wanted or even needed to know, the media would have its way of fortrlling what to be expected in the regular multitude of ways, from code switching to the careful arrangements at which things were conducted behind the scenes, both on and off air, however— treading lightly and under the circumstances of dismissal from even my own project and worlds, within the tightly knit circle I knew I had peered into and started to attract some sort of attention, and wondered if, even as a civilian audience member, my creativity would be procured. Which did I even have more interest in? Perhaps truly neither, as the excavation of my inner piece and fantastical plotting of narrowly escaping the depths of New York's well gated poverty system, I had been nearly drowning in an ocean of hopes nearly shared by every individual with which I shared this condition on the planet: that is to say—nobody wanted to be alone, broke, and lonely— and especially when that meant all of your art, hopes, and dreams had been entirely wasted. {Enter The Multiverse} [The Festival Project.™] COPYRIGHT © THE FESTIVAL PROJECT 2024 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ©