I Found My Old Soundcloud

TW: rape, trafficking, suicide

Apart from visual arts and poetry, I've always had a heart for creating music. I started making music in high school, when I played the piano and wrote several classical pieces. I still have the book I wrote them in! I'd love to relearn them some day. I can't play as well as I used to but I'd love to hear the pieces I wrote and see them come to life again. 

I took a break from writing music while in college, because I simply didn't have the time between assignments and not sleeping. Music became something more distant to me, something I "used to do" instead of being constantly engulfed in it. However, during quarantine (2020), I bought myself a keyboard. I hooked it up to my laptop and began creating again. I simply was inspired by other artists and wanted to see what my sound would be like after so many years of not making music. Unexpectedly, the sounds I was creating were much different than the ones I had made in the past. I had moved from classical pieces to more modern songs that incorporated many different elements, instruments, and sounds. 

The first song that I wrote is called "Jasmine," and it was written about an ex-girlfriend I was hopelessly in love with. The chorus sings "kiss my eyes, kiss my soul, kiss my heart till I come home." These lyrics were inspired by a moment we shared together. During sex, she had kissed my eyes. When I asked what she was doing, she replied that the eyes are the closest way to the soul, and that it was her way of kissing my soul. I think about her sometimes, and when I do its mostly good memories. I could speak more to the negatives of that relationship, but for the sake of the potential of the song I'll leave that topic be.

I quickly created more songs in this style, from "Be with Me," (another song about the same ex-girlfriend, specifically getting over the breakup), to "Beautiful Withdrawal," (about suffering from drug addiction, and recognizing an old sober self), to "She Was Not a Stranger." This song is related to my experiences in the trafficking world. It's from my first album ever: "Mass of Contradictions." The song is about a moment I shared with another victim of sex trafficking. I was in a local club bathroom and recognized her smoking in the bathroom. I recognized her from a moment we shared providing services together in a van several months ago. I knew she recognized me too, the moment she saw me. We smoked together, didn't talk about our shared experience, but just talked as if we were strangers. It was nice. Nice to not have to identify each other with trauma, but identify each other as the human beings that we were.

Although "Mass of Contradictions" is an earlier album, and my musical skill-level shows it, I'm incredibly proud of this album. It tells a story of the brain-washing, abusive patterns that take place in order for Johns to gain power over their victims. Here are the songs that make up the album:

1. Dig - about facing the control a John has over you.

2. Jasmine - about being hopelessly in love with the most beautiful woman you've seen.

3. Slaughter - about learning how to cope with the crimes you've been forced to commit

4. Blindspot -about not being able to feel love due to PTSD

5. Imagine the Blue - Imagining the love you are unable to feel

6. Be With Me - coping with the loss of the one you love

7. Let me Down Slowly (Cover) - coping with loneliness (cover)

8. She Was Not a Stranger - meeting up with a familiar face you share trauma with 

This first album is incredibly important to me, because it establishes my reintroduction with music and the healing power that it contains. Music helped me process the traumatic events I had experienced throughout high school and college; identifying most things I had put on the back burner or not even tried to acknowledge at all. I'm so proud of this music, because I'm so proud of the progress that I've made in my mind, soul, body, heart, all of it. 

I've shared my music before, but never with the context of my experiences as a sex trafficking survivor. It feels so freeing to be able to share that context and information and let my music and story be heard the way it was meant to. For example, the song "Sink" is about having suicidal thoughts. But more specifically, it's about wanting to die after a night of servicing a John. I wrote this song after my John had broken into my house, drugged me, and raped me in my own bed for several days. Some of the lyrics contain the phrases "take my flags out of the trash, rinse and hang back on the wall,  fabric stretched the way my skin crawls." These lyrics were inspired after my John had seen my pride flags above my bed and thrown them away. The day after he left was the day I took them out of the trash, washed them, and hung them back on the wall. Through that act I was taking care of myself and my identity. Many of my songs (if not all) are about my trafficking experiences in their own way. 

Other older songs of mine can be found on my old soundcloud account.

My two most-recent albums can be found on Spotify.