Art, Photos, Music, some thoughts…
What is it like to grieve the better person you were and may have become? These songs were written while navigating a very difficult transition with much loss. I was changed in ways I wish I hadn’t been. This album is the sound of a soul healing with unsightly scars, but healing nonetheless.
Bandcamp: https://allysonmarie.bandcamp.com/album/the-taken-life
Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/album/2Z2N5lC0L8bolkH7lAKDvK?si=clftE_6FS_S–ncBTiEtgg
I had to say goodbye to someone very important to me today. Didn’t expect it but knew I’d have to face a farewell eventually. It’s been nearly a decade and this hurts, but I dearly wish them well.
My contest entry has been accepted 
I wasn’t planning to enter this year, but I wrote this and felt it had the right energy this time, It’s a reminder to myself to be as present and open as I can be, while I can. I think it’s a message worth sharing. If you listen, thank you and I hope you enjoy. Poem below.
Be As the Water
No, the river rising won’t mind the flood.
Like arms of the ocean, to the sky every open.
Given good and bad, it fills up in love.
Any and all and more than enough.
What lessons? To accept this life gave what you need.
The good and bad equal the meaningful between.
So be as the water ever open to the sky.
Forget how you got here. Forget you asked why.
Why? Why? Why? No reason at all.
Tomorrow is yesterday, over and done.
To be is all purpose could ever want.
However you got here is with a goodbye,
Sure as the loss as each moment here dies.
So be as the water ever open to the sky.
Forget how you got here. Forget you ask why.
Why? Why? No reason at all.
Link to browse all the other cool contest entries this year: https://tinydeskcontest.npr.org/2024/browse-2024/
Spray painted background then free handed the rest. I have been stuck on a title, but think I’ve settled on “By Any Means” as in answering the question “how are you getting by?” Wondering about just how much it takes to stay propped up and moving through this life. Title might change but it works for now.
This painting is small, 6in x 4in I think. Not sure I even have it anymore, but I think I understand what I was trying to say now when it was made. It is painful watching efforts come to nothing again and again. Things go wrong, then keep going wrong whether one can handle it or not. I hate it here most of the time, for real.
Recorded back in September.
Lyrics:
Haunted by the first. Give more blood than it’s worth.
A worried heartbeat set to burst,
And every single moment hurts.
Have mercy! Take the rest away.
Tomorrow need not know the shame.
How my days live for the night.
The ice to a carving knife.
And there’s no safer place.
This world I can’t take.
I know happier life died at my birth.
It’s this unspoken pain I serve.
All along, gathering nerve to breathe the flames.
You watch me burn.
As settled ashes, I’ll return.
The never here at all I’ve earned.
The unspoken pain I serve.
How every single moment hurt.
Every single moment hurt.
The never here at all…never here at all I’ve earned.
“Her killing rage no one escapes.” I’ve got a little story in my head about this piece. I image this character towering over the world, breathing out flames to engulf all of human creation. On good days, there is a clearing for new life to begin again. On other days, our world goes dark and stays quiet that way until the universe ends. The painting is an expression of rage I feel better for and understand myself better through the work of it. I also really enjoyed another moment to use my neon pink…lol
A page from the sketch book with two drawings I’m hoping to paint within the next few months.
New release. These are songs written from 2020 – 2021 I gave extra care to and I’m happy with what I was able to do and learn given the times. The work was everything to me. On streaming & Bandcamp : https://allysonmarie.bandcamp.com/album/promised-hurt
My mother painted the black and red brushstrokes of this heart and I added the other elements, made a card. It reminds me of bandaged flesh, something on the mend. I’m trying to recover now from the past 2 months, but I’m struggling and unsolicited hope / optimism is making it worse. Upsetting because it doesn’t work on me anymore.
