1) TEBORI

Tebori is about drugs. More specifically Tebori is about finding the right relationship with drugs. Because I think we all have a relationship with drugs. Admit it, no ones looking. Caffeine counts, sugar too. Like most relationships of the human experience, we struggle to get it right. Being in and out of relationship with a drug is the difference between using it to dissociate and using it to get to some deeper truth about your situation. This track is about trying to get to some deeper truth about my situation like understanding why fear colors so many of my attempts to be creative or develop meaningful relationships with other humans. Are art and friends possible without drugs? The opening line “buzzed to dull the urges now I’m become a rainbow serpent” is a reference to a time I used way too much LSD to dissociate from a shit space I was in. A terrible idea, I don’t recommend. I spent most of that night hiding in a tent watching myself transform into a snake made of multicolored light. What the fuck, Chreesto.

LYRICS

buzzed to

dull the urges

now I'm become

a rainbow serpent

never thought it

would be perfect, I

just wanted

to be of service

to something other

than the voices

when I try to

serve this purpose

and I know

it isn't worthless

and I know you

don't deserve it

but there's limits

to the liminal

and I'm always

fucking nervous

so i'm

darting eyes

in circus

dotting i's

tebori dermis

attention pretzeled

an the presence of a

concentrate contortionist

trying to isolate

the glory from gory

but the venn

is overlapping

like a thousand

coffee mugs

exploring

the surface of the morning

unaware of

where the edge is

until falling off

the clock completely

deaf to

deficit awareness

death to

whatever planned this

def dig

for your Atlantis

with the pick of equanimity

by the light

of your Polaris

what I want to say

is brilliant

but I’m trapped

inside the surface

my intention is

expressionist

my attention is

absurdist

listen to Tebori

Walrus attempts to connect the dots between the survival tactics programmed in my youth and the deficiencies stories that still play out as an adult. This one was big for me to talk about because despite all the vulnerability in my work, I never felt like I could talk about this period I my life. Lately I’ve been able to make a lot of peace with my past so this expression feels like a bit of closure.

Walrus happens in two parts. The first part is a confessional about depression and the kind of decompensation that occurs during dark mental health episodes when relationships and responsibilities become nearly impossible to maintain. When the simplest tasks take tremendous effort and just getting through the day can feel like running a “Tough Mudder.” Toward the end of the first part, you hear me calling myself for help from another breakdown. This was a real moment I had back in 2022. I realized that no matter how many good people we have around us, we can’t really transmute all that suffering if we don’t eventually show up for ourselves. The first part ends with me becoming my own emergency contact.

The second part of Walrus is a flashback. It’s me looking at how I got here. I look at my relationship with writing and tell a story about finding poetry at age 10 during a traumatic time in my childhood. The lyrics here include the first poem I ever wrote. The poem was about being tired, stressed and scared at 10 years old and finding empathy in the spinning blades of an oscillating fan. I shared that poem in my 5th grade class and it was the first time I can remember telling the truth about what I was feeling. It was the first time I can remember feeling connected to those around me by just telling my story honestly. This part of the track hovers around the middle of 1990 which was my first experience as a fat kid in an unseasonably hot and humid Long Island summer. Cue the epic Cruel Summer backing vocals from Jasmine Ferrara. Walrus goes on to lament about the conditions of my past in a way that hopefully feels less whiny and more cathartic.

LYRICS

What I want you to know is this;

there are times I am terrified of seeing you.

There are mornings

the sun feels like a sucker punch.

There are nights I fall asleep

praying that you don't remember me

for the demolition evidence

for the missed calls and the medicine.

There are dreams

where I no longer play victim.

There is a bed edge worn thin.

There are countless blank pages

that do not say how I’m feeling.

There is silence like sirens.

I haven't even learned how to say that shit without trying to sound cool about it. Truth is, on most days I'm certain you're pitching my pyre. See what I mean? What I meant to say is that on most days I've got to run a Tough Mudder just to convince myself I haven't let you down - I've got a bum hip, a dull foot and way more meat on the bone than I oughtta – it is an undisputed religious experience every I time cross the finish line, collapsing in the gravity of your hallelujah. You really like me. Even covered in all this mud. You said it looked like a baptism.

Despite the inheritance that has been stored up in your unconditional cheek-to-shining-cheek, I still wear coins in my shoes for every inevitable rescue call scrambling to identify the exact intersection of this breakdown.

What you don’t know about me

is that I’m terrified to be here.

In this skin.

The first poem I ever wrote was in 1990.

I was 10 years old.

5th grade.

I remember some poet

came to visit our classroom.

I couldn’t tell you his name

but I remember that he looked

terrified to be there.

I liked that about him.

I didn’t think adults got scared.

Most of the rest of that memory

is gone wherever memories go.

I do remember being asked to write a poem.

He taught us about simile;

a figure of speech involving the comparison

of one thing with another thing of a different kind,

used to make a description more emphatic.”

I’m alone in another new home

where this newly trauma’d,

doughy identity, rapidly developing

limiting beliefs and deficiency stories,

lays on the august floor

praying to the altar of an oscillating fan

for mercy

that a cruel summer never delivered

Remembering the wisdom of the oscillating fan

and now newly armed with simile -

I wrote 12 words that would soon move

from paper to mouth

when I was called to share…and I read:

My life is like fan blades¬¬¬¬

Turning and turning

Never getting rest

I sat up straight and took my rightful place

in the felt presence of being witnessed

But I remember laying there

like a wounded walrus

in the chowder thick Long Island humidity

a fat kid who had been to a new school for every grade

whose mom left his dad

which only translated to her leaving him

and him not understanding any of it

watching the fan blades spin

in perfect chaos

on demand

trying its best to bring comfort

being no match for the ocean of atmosphere before it

finding empathy for the propulsion

and respect for the devotion because that fan

– my life –

was doing it's best

to do the thing it left the factory designed to do

I don’t think either of us thought

there would be such little rest

or so much dust

What you don’t know about me

is that I’m terrified to be here.