Words spill out to reveal memory, mix with melody, harmonize with piano keys, reverberate hazy yet brave, on into infinity, or oblivion, whichever comes first. Film reels flicker behind your closed eyes, play back moments, long passed, in tandem. Afternoons spent under oak leaves, bathed in golden light, flicker briefly then dim. Hours passed in dark rooms that you’ve haunted on days when you became your own ghost. Mornings alone, studying your reflection in the mirror, you are there, but for a moment you swear you are disappearing. Fade from your own frame. Nights spent staring at the sky, screaming your existence up to the stars, alive as the cold air wraps itself around your shoulders. Wind whispers through anxious pines, a reminder to keep those promises you made to yourself in those pictures. Mend the tears you have made, nothing is too torn to be fixed. Some things were made to be forgotten; some memories were meant to be lost. Fill your lungs up with smoke, exhale a sigh of relief; you don’t have to be alone. Crashing waves aren’t the comfort you’re searching for, but for now, they have to be good enough. Break your bones crossing your fingers, pull every dandelion that you find from the root; rest easy, someday you will find your home.
Blurry eyes finally learn to focus; scan the landscape that found you. Trace the backlit horizon with your calloused fingertips; find the map drawn from the broken lines in your palms and follow it. Make good on what Orpheus never could; leave this world you’ve known behind without a backward glance. Ever forward into the setting sun, let your shadow be the one to bear your burdens. Turn your face skyward, dizzy under evergreen boughs, wade ankle deep into clear water, absolve yourself of the sins of your parents, baptized anew, no longer by fire, walk on your unsteady legs, a once fallen fawn, you stand again.
Where you are going is not where you want to be, but its better than where you are now.
Eventually you will get there.
Loss Memory is the final album from Mat Cothran’s project Coma Cinema. Take a listen for yourself below. Loss Memory is self released but is available on vinyl through Joy Void.
More about: Coma Cinema, Elvis Depressedly, Mathew Lee Cothran
