BYSYD

Music saves me.

It did many times when I was younger,

Me sitting on the bathroom floor trying not to think about how much easier it would be to not be

And the sounds of Tyler and Joseph by my side to remind me I am not as mad as I seem to be.

I remember the day I locked myself up in my father's room.

Contemplating.

Plan in place.

It would have been so cruel to do it there, leave him with no answers

But like most suicidal people, all I wanted was for the pain to stop.

I was blinded by it, nothing else mattered more.

I couldn't see any other way.

But I didn't want to die.

No one necessarily wants to die.

If life were kinder, people too, it might not be so.

If we were taught how important it is to listen to and respect one's own self,

Perhaps it wouldn't be as bad.

But life is a mess by nature, like the rest of the chaos of the world.

And I didn't understand then that it was possible to not hate myself so much.

It's weird, the things that make me stop in moments like those.

A lot less frequent now but it slips by when I'm in scrapes, a little temptation from some curious, unseen onlooker

That day in particular, all I had to do was close my eyes and let it overtake my senses.

Before You Start Your Day by Twenty-Øne Pilots began to play.

His voice was... Comfort.

It was peace for a wounded soul.

I did a little shitty ballet in the quietness of the room.

I cried.

And I left.

I don't tell this story because I'm trying to pull any pity.

We're all mad here, living in a world like this.

I'm starting to understand that in that regard, I could never be alone.

I just don't know any other way to describe the kind of hold music has on me.

Whether to save,

Or to destroy,

Bringing me back from the edge reborn everytime.

It's the flickering, guiding light of a candle in a world of gray and darkness.

Sometimes,

Nearing a panic attack over one of the many fragile things that bother my existence,

Nothing else can soothe me

But that otherworldly magic.

Maybe it's a crutch

Like my sister believes.

Going to it so fluidly with no expectations, just the hope that the sounds I find may come to my aid

But isn't that what people do with their gods, anyway?

And if I can find something a little closer to my fingers than a silent deity, well, I think it's best to be grateful for the existence of the mad men that create such artistry and

Leave it at that.

Don't you?