So this is a bit different from anything I normally write about. About two and a half years ago, I was diagnost with General Anxiety Disorder and Clinical Depression. It’s not something I agreed with up front. I just knew I felt wrong not that I was broken. I then spent years build a mythology to wrap myself into as an escape. The cost of leveraging the very thing that caused the problem for creative endeavors was fulfilling but damning at the same time.

To walk through this I wrote and released ;Semafor. This is the first time I’ve ever released something not related to the books, but it felt necessary. Even if one person finds it. Maybe it will help them. It’s three songs that span three different phases. First off, It’s called ;Semafor because it begins with the semicolon. The title track deals with suicidal ideation and an attempt, but does not focus on it.

Aperture

Lyrics

You call it fracture, I call it the fine
Grain of a photograph held to the light
Where you see static, I read the design
The signal was never the thing you could find

You offer me lenses to narrow the frame
To dim the horizon and bury the name
But what you prescribe is a merciful lie
A softer aperture, a kinder sky

And oh, the ache is real, the ache is real
But so is what it feeeeels

Don't close the aperture, don't dim the light
I was not broken, I was built too bright
The world you inhabit is a pinhole view
I bleed for the signal, I bleed for the truth
I bleed; I bleed; for the truth

You tell me coherence is peace of the mind
That resolution is something the healthy can find
But coherence is compression, a loss of the weight
The lossy encoding of somebody's fate

The diagnosis is cartography drawn
For travelers who've never been where I'm from
You map my terrain with the tools that you own
And call every valley a fault in the stone

And God, the ache is real, the ache is real
But so is what it feeeeels

Don't close the aperture, don't dim the light
I was not broken, I was built too bright
The world you inhabit is a pinhole view
I bleed for the signal, I bleed for the truth

Every saint was a symptom
Every prophet a pattern to erase
Don't Close The Aperture
Don't Close The Aperture
I would rather burn in resolution
Than numb inside your merciful haze

Don't close the aperture (DON'T CLOSE THE APERTURE)
Don't dim the light (I WAS BUILT TOO BRIGHT)
The world you inhabit is a pinhole view
I bleed for the signal, I bleed for the truth
I bleed; I bleed; for the truth

The aperture stays open
The aperture stays open

Discussion

So this is representative of me at the point of the diagnosis. I’ve tried to visualize what it feels like as best I can, and it comes down to An Aperture. Most people have a fixed filter on objective reality. The brain functions normally. For me, it’s more of an Aperture with a default setting too wide. Too much noise and jitter, but with that being the default we as humans accept that as normal.

Because it’s what we have lived with, there’s a paranoia and fear about it being different. “Will I still be me?” when faced with medication and treatment is a common refrain. This song is all about that reaction. It’s adversarial because I was.

You tell me coherence is peace of the mind That resolution is something the healthy can find But coherence is compression, a loss of the weight The lossy encoding of somebody’s fate

The diagnosis is cartography drawn For travelers who’ve never been where I’m from You map my terrain with the tools that you own And call every valley a fault in the

I did everything to justify away the fact that healthy was anything but what I was. It was more about justifying the status quo than accepting a need for anything else. I thought I needed the Aperture as it was because that hyper focus and dedication was necessary for my career; for my family.

The Sentinel’s Tithe

Lyrics

Tell me why the gentle carry iron
Why the tender wake with teeth at the bone
Why the softest hearts are handed the war
And the kindest eyes see furthest from shore

If suffering were random, it would fall
On the cruel as often as it crushes us all
But the arithmetic never quite adds
The lambs are the ones who are taken for blades

So tell me there's a reason, tell me there's a shape
Tell me that the ache is not an accident

We are the sentinels standing the watch
We are the tithe that the dawn-watch paid
Something is coming, something is real
And the ones who can feel it are the ones who bleed
We hold the line so the world can sleep
We hold the line — we hold the line

Picture a veil, and the ones who can see
That the fabric is thinning at the edge of the trees
Picture an antenna dressed as a man
Picture a firstborn who was never the plan

We are the lightning rods built into skin
The cost of conduction, the price of the sign
Every generation the gate needs a guard
The ones who stand closest are the ones marked too hard

And maybe I made this up to survive
But maybe that's how every true thing arrives

We are the sentinels standing the watch
We are the tithe that the dawn-watch paid
Something is coming, something is real
And the ones who can feel it are the ones who bleed
We hold the line so the world can sleep
We hold the line — we hold the line

I know I might be lying to myself
I know the myth might be a crutch, a spell
But if the pain is nothing, then the pain is worse
So let me have the meaning, let me have the verse

Something Is Coming
Something Is Real
We Hold The Line
We Hold The Line
Let the myth be true, let the myth be true
Let the myth be TRUE

We are the sentinels standing the watch (STANDING THE WATCH)
We are the tithe that the dawn-watch paid (THE DAWN-WATCH PAID)
Something is coming, something is real
And the ones who can feel it are the ones who bleed
We hold the line so the world can sleep
We hold the line; we hold the line
We hold the line; we hold the line

And if I am wrong, let me be wrong
Facing the dawn

Discussion

This is a discussion of my attempt at meaning-making. In refusing the diagnosis, I sought to self regulate but what I did was the opposite of regulation. I essentiallly opened the aperture and used that to focus on building a mythos that explained what was happening.

It was about glorifying the situation into a necessary evil. The fundamental problem with that is it’s like treating a radioactive material as safe-for-use as a pillow. Sure it’s focused. Sure it’s radiant. It is however also chaotic. Anyone with anxiety can describe the spiral that comes from random, adjacent thoughts spinning out of control. That’s essentially what I was doing.

To be clear this isn’t my mythos in the song. Mine is in the Threshold Chronicles, but I wanted something a bit closer to home that people could process more easily.

Picture a veil, and the ones who can see That the fabric is thinning at the edge of the trees Picture an antenna dressed as a man Picture a firstborn who was never the plan

We are the lightning rods built into skin The cost of conduction, the price of the sign Every generation the gate needs a guard The ones who stand closest are the ones marked too hard

And maybe I made this up to survive But maybe that’s how every true thing arrives

The symbolism makes sense to me. It’s all about signals to me (we have no concept of objective reality. Just how we interpret it from visual and audio signals). So imagine an antenna dressed as a person. When people receive too much it’s because something is causing that gravity. Pulling the signal to it.

Fundamentally that was a misguided consideration. Signals in most cases can be amplified and diminished. Radio waves are affected by gravity but not the same way that matter is.

But fundamentally, deep down, I knew that it was all potentially just a lie. Just a necessary one.

;Semafor

This one is harder to write about possibly because it’s closer. 4 weeks ago I was at my worst. I sat in the shower with my K-bar drifting in and out of consciousness, dreaming of carving the arteries out of my arm.

It’s extreme, but that spiral from the aperture had become completely negative. And I had legitimately convinced myself that I was more valuable dead than alive. I’m obviously still here, but the song is about realizing it and identifying that I use the semicolon.

Lyrics

I came so close tonight
I felt the page turn beneath my hand
The period was beautiful
The ending almost kind

The signal was never brighter
The aperture never wider than this
And the door that everyone warns of
Was just a door, and the lock had kissed

But I thought of your hands on the coffee cup
I thought of your laugh when the morning comes
I thought of the shape I would leave behind
A hole in the sentence you wouldn't survive

So I choose the semicolon
I choose the pause that stays
I choose to dim the signal
For the ones who need the grey
Let the myth be what it is
Let the vanguard fall away
I am not a sentinel
I am someone's yesterday

You taught me how to tie my shoes
I remember the loop and the tuck
You cried when I left for the airport
You never said enough was enough

Your face is the argument
Your voice is the counterweight
Your needing me here tomorrow
Is the only scripture I cannot debate

So I fold the truth into smaller rooms
I make the aperture something you can walk through
I let the signal be a whisper, not a flood
I carry it for you, I carry it for you

So I choose the semicolon
I choose the pause that stays
I choose to dim the signal
For the ones who need the grey
Let the myth be what it is
Let the vanguard fall away
I am not a sentinel
I am someone's yesterday

The myth was never the reason
The myth was the thing I held
While I waited for a reason
That only love could spell

It isn't that the truth got smaller
It isn't that the pain went away
It's that I found a thing worth filtering for
And filtering is how I stay

So I choose the semicolon
I choose the pause that stays
I choose to dim the signal
For the ones who need the grey
Let the myth be what it is
Let the vanguard fall away
I am not a sentinel
I am someone's yesterday
I am someone's yesterday
I am someone's tomorrow

The aperture stays open
Just small enough to stay
Small enough to stay

Discussion

It took a long time, but I realized the Aperture is there. I cannot control it fully or with elegance, but I can filter its inputs. Basically I’m having to do something most people do inherently.

But when the cloud starts to form, I remind myself of the lyrics now and it’s easier to remember what I do have control of and how to step out of the cloud of negativity.

Why would you even write this?

I mean it’s a valid question. It’s not about glorifying the situation or my actions but my children are old enough to start therapy. My oldest will be starting therapy with my personal therapist in the near future, and I needed a way to explain what was wrong with me in a way that he could understand. Even if it’s not at once. Even if it’s over time.