this passage through the flames

This one has been hit­ting me par­tic­u­lar­ly hard late­ly, a wind­ing, dis­so­nant pulse that nev­er fails to draw me to a dark and calm­ing place. Gojira’s albums are filled with aggres­sive, intense pas­sages that explore themes of trau­ma, mys­ti­cism, and death, but none of their songs feel as heavy as this, no doubt influ­enced by the pass­ing of the Duplantier matri­arch1. Yet through­out, as with most of Joseph’s lyrics, is a sense of hope and opti­mism in the face of the chaos that con­stant­ly threat­ens to drown us all.

I’m at a point in my life — again — where it’s good to know that music can still bring me to tears. I long believed SNRIs had robbed me of the abil­i­ty to cry in those small moments between life-chang­ing crises.

It’s a solace I glad­ly accept when sleep is a rose that rarely graces my gar­den nowa­days. Even when I stay up beyond the point of exhaus­tion, I begin to stir short­ly after pass­ing out with thoughts swim­ming in my head, anx­ious and ter­ri­fied before I real­ize I’m already awake again.

And when I can’t con­cen­trate on the things that used to bring me joy, when all I can do is sit in the black­ness of my room, drunk, stoned, and sedat­ed, I’ll take any com­fort I can get.

  1. Mother of broth­ers Joe and Mario Duplantier, the lead vocal­ist / rhythm gui­tarist and drum­mer. []

Leave a Reply