Has DJ Capricorn woken up yet?
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
I can't tell.
I've counted the passage of time in bathroom breaks... and I feel like I've taken too few of them.
All of my waste comes out in sweat.
All of my pensiveness and paranoia...
The pent-up tears, like bullets. Every single one of them rattling against the inner surfaces of my skull.
The past is a migraine, rolled into a coarse thread and pulled out both canals at once. My brain screams with each note that I mutate, morph, and mutilate into a semblance of new noise.
Centuries ago, this was easy. But now that I'm having to piece it all together—to jury rig the jigsaw into something resembling the portrait of a pony who's spent all her career being dead...
I feel like all the hollow corners of me are being filled with pins and needles. It hurts to move, and each disc spin makes me bleed internally.
Did I ever think that this would somehow be easy?
I tell myself "just one more track."
"Just one more sample mixing" and I'll go out for a walk.
Go out to breathe.
Go out to run screaming through the streets until the magenta crushes my skull to a pulp—a final release, relief...
But something hooks me. Is it the sound? Is it the color?
It's not that the violet is intoxicating. It's familiar, yes, but how do I even know it's good?
Because it hurts so damn much.
Celestia on a bike...
I feel everything slipping away. Every minute and every hour. I'm pieces of porcelain with every chipped edge facing north... and yet I'm jamming them all into a round hole with hopes that it'll all fit.
Goddess help me. This is such a train wreck. I shouldn't have pretended that there was actual hope in finishing this.
Finishing this means one thing and one thing only: finishing me.
And by the way everything's bleeding—the sound, the noise, the scratching in my skull—I think I'd much prefer the freezing river instead.
And yet, I don't leave.
I don't burst out the doors to Capricorn's apartment.
Heaven help me, I'm a sweaty, heaving heap. I must smell like a landfill. Bums would have better sense than to let themselves cook under such intense insanity incubation.
I shouldn't have to do all of this on my own.
Capricorn's here.
I should let her share the weight... like I let Lyra do.
Not all of my studio work is technically "mine." Even out on tour, I'm not myself without Roadie Beau acting as my better half.
And yet... I can't bring myself to summon her.
Just like how I can't bring myself to think of Tavi.
This is painful and this is pathetic.
Because it's about me... and I've let her rot for far too long. Cleaning up all the festering sours leaves a nauseating stench in the air, and I inhale it with each breath. The rot melts inside my veins, spreads through every organ, and bleeds out my skin with this slick sweat.
All the while, my limbs are moving... the horn is glowing...
...and something mystical is growing. Coalescing. Germinating into a monstrosity too thunderous for my ears.
And yet, somehow I know that... within months... weeks... days...
...I'll be listening to this beast anyways.
Will she kill me or will she torture me?
I suppose only time will tell... and that's what keeps me awake right now.
Seven years and twelve ballads into this venture, and I'm still standing on the edge.
The beat goes on. My heart throbs. And I cling to the turntable to stay afloat.
I have to get this done.
I have to finish it... finish her... finish me...
I have... have...