Death Is Not a Dance

Though I find a great deal of joy in composing on topics of fantasy and fiction, I’ve found that my work has been significantly lacking in explicit personal emotion. While my pieces are of course greatly influenced by my experiences, I have been afraid to blatantly state my vulnerabilities. Death Is Not a Dance was conceived through a combination of two things: the desire to take advantage of how music can be a powerful emotional outlet in a very tumultuous time in my life and the need to overcome my fear of vulnerability in the face of my peers.

Therefore, though organized in a format more conducive to song, Death Is Not a Dance is not a story nor is based on one. It is the dialogue I have had with myself time and time and again in regards to my value to others and my value to myself.

I begin by laying out a set of mantras to repeat: one should not strive to be a tortured artist, as that will indeed result in one being tortured; one should not stew in one’s negative emotions in the hopes that the cause will notice, as this only breeds resentment; and most of all, one should not romanticize death in the way that it is romanticized in fiction, as life is not fiction. Pain and suffering do not automatically generate a happy ending by comparison.

I believe these truths, and yet they distress me as the meter clarifies into a threatening dance with my inner demons. It is easy to settle for pity when wanting to be wanted, and shifting away from this mindset is both empowering and exhausting, giving me moments of both clarity and anguish. My escapist pastimes taunt me in sickeningly accurate descriptions of my emotional state. I continue to reprimand myself for thoughts that I know are unreasonable, but logic feels foreign in my hysterical state. I don’t know how to have value, and so much time spent in pursuit of false solutions has left me unequipped. 

Though weakened, the voice of reason does not stop. She is fabricated, but she is right.