A New Album Is Coming

Hi subscribers and blog followers! It’s been ages, so I don’t know who is still out here with me. But the update is this: I’m releasing a new album this year. I haven’t released music in 7 years, and I am simply thrilled to be able to bring to you, in sound, who I am now. So much has changed, of course, since you last heard music from me: I have left the church and reconstructed an entirely different worldview, I’m out as a lesbian and living in my wholeness, and I’ve got stories to tell. 

With this third and upcoming album—the title of which is yet to be announced—I am breaking into the sapphic pop genre. I’m leaving my twenties and every last shred of heterosexuality firmly behind with a new, mature sound, standout vocals, and a message that producer of the project Chase Coy calls “very powerful.” This new album is for the post-evangelical queers who have a bittersweet relationship with all that they had to leave behind, anyone who knows the delicious pain of a lesbian situationship, and all who are in therapy for disorganized attachment issues, but for me this project is a letter to a complicated, closeted love and a letting go of a woman I never really had.  

Now if you’ve been following me in this space for any amount of time, you likely already know parts of the story I’m referencing. But with this album I will be speaking through the lens of someone who has made peace with the ghosts of her past, been to a lot of therapy, and finally has the hands to hold the complicated truths that come with living under oppressive systems, being indoctrinated from a young age, and understanding how that affects our relationships with one another, knowing that it’s both possible and sometimes even lovely to miss someone who brought you pain. I hope you will give me the grace to retell this story in a way that’s much more true to who I am now. 

If you subscribed here to get updated about my writing, you should know that I’ve recently revised the writing section of my website. There’s a lot of new pieces published there that I’ve been working on since 2020. Before starting work on this album, creative writing was my main outlet for the last three years, so I hope to bring you more of that going forward. I have a lot of writing that I’ve been sitting on pretty selfishly for a while that I’m nearly ready to let see the light of your screens. 

You can always follow along on TikTok and Instagram to get more album and general life updates from me. 

I Was Smaller Then

I was smaller then—when 

stuffed Portobello swelled with people,

yellow, below blooming gutters. Pineapple,

plaid button-down, round rims. I was smaller,

swallowed in Xs, stretching knits over knees,

breezing cotton layers coping, covering, cardigan-tied,

hiding evidence of gut and spine, loathsome

human cush. I was smaller then—and shrinking still, 

running marathons in halves, calves scorching

as soles dropped to upward-sloping sidewalks. Just high

enough on sweat to forget the hollow gnaw, yawning

acid pit, empty from a steady diet of restriction and gorging

on religion. Less of me, more of the Ozian magician

asking me to pay him in piety, cloak my backbone

in niceties. Fasting, passing in straight sizes, masked,

undercover Willendorf, venus of cramped closets, fitting

for a secret hiding place since I was smaller then—

before I learned how to take up space.

And I'd Do It Again

23

He will do it—make

rivers, rushing wet things, springs, 

all things new, and I will 

sing about it: Pocahontas, Riverbend

shit. Again. Rain-dancing in 

ivy-covered driveways, dry 

days shouldn’t happen when you

actually pray. But the almosts wane—they 

never wax full like the sink with dishes

when no one else is around to do them. 

18

I’m going home to my

people. He met me on the corner

of Wedgewood and 15th, said

don’t get comfortable here, said

waymaker, said gets better, said

Genesis and 31st. Nashville will

will still be rain and brown leaves 

and pancake syrup and here.

24

She’s doing it again—making

memories, bad dreams, flashbacks, 

expensive conversation topics, and I will 

watch from the corner of my ceiling:

guardian angel shit, dissociated. 

5

They ask me to demonstrate, violate her

with my fingers, Raggedy Ann, exhibit

A; no one believes her either. 

11

I didn’t do it—take

my clothes off for her, unmask. Ask

me, and I will tell you about the believe

we made, pretend played, princess

shit, charades. Again. In the mirror box you

gifted, made, said I’ll get my camera, said

I’m busy, said have fun, said how come

your face is red. But tonight you’ll be

bedside, praying down angels to watch

over my sleep. Them you believe. 

2

Funny baby. Me do it. Let me hold

you. I already knew I’d have to carry you. 

26

I will do it—make

meaning, start over, deconstruct dogma: 

no god, allah, pasta, and I will say

I’m coming home. Again. Say born

this way, say she didn’t make me

gay, say I know who I am: Moana,

Te Fiti shit. Goddess, witch, moon-

maker like everything is full now, like

it was never a phase, like no one made

me. I choose this. Me do it. 

28

I made an ocean where a river used

to be, and the waves carry me, weightless,

home to myself. Again.