It’s the artist’s postpartum depression
that plagues my generation
Nowhere to go in the valleys
between corpulent cities
a balancing act between: excess and Death
which end is ours,
unshown and unknown
Where are our defining marks
when all we’ve known:
are highways lined with trailer parks?
Vomit stench trends-
our noses in the air to pretend
the littered river and rotten livers
are a godsend;
Passionless, possessive relationships:
itching for the scent of spit
Our hopes co-opted and stolen
by commercial tropes.
Never finding that perfect rhyme,
waiting for a brighter sun to rise
Always killing time;
Forever in decline.
Living terrified,
gassed in our beehive
Doors shake
The ground quakes
Jesus breaks
Up rises the concrete
filled lake
wide-eye we
drown while awake
Inhale the liquid deep
Filter oxygen and creep
Begotten from the gutter
To the surface, flailing harder
One day we’ll arrive,
dry, reconciled, and alive.
Toronto band Respire deliver a post-hardcore tour de force on the largest scale possible, orchestrally rich and incessantly uncompromising. Bandcamp New & Notable Jan 6, 2021