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The early nights are confusing for the soul, but the forced retirement might do me some good. We went to a dance party. We were the youngest ones there and it was beautiful watching people a decade older than me find joy in nostalgia. I loved Anora. I miss New Jersey. I have been making Christmas ornaments by hand for my future family. I have been taking care of my mother. She has good days and bad. All of this in the few moments between the work and the work and the work. Confetti shot out of a Canon once the crowd already left the building. I feel as though it was all for nothing. It’s a dry, cold, itch. Maybe I’ll hide again until a tour when the sun comes back. Maybe I won’t make a sound. Maybe I’ll sleep. Maybe I’ll choose different this time with my restart to zero, my bonus life I pulled from a box. And pull from a box with a needle every 3 weeks. Maybe maybe maybe. Maybe I fixed everything so I could do this one thing again, without realizing that one thing was what needed fixing. I am tired and I forgot how to have fun. I complain too much and I should keep it to myself, I’ve been told a lot the past few weeks. But the thing is that I can’t. I have an unrelenting ache and a never ending whine that must crank out of me like a tornado siren in the dark. That’s what’s been wrong with me the entire time, couldn’t they see? I’ve always needed to be seen to exist. But now they don’t see me, and I’m still existing. Perhaps, problem solved. Regrettably.

i loved one direction with an all-consuming force when i was younger. it hurts deeply to mourn someone you were a massive fan of as teenager, and became a peer of as an adult.

i know people change and grief is unsure or complicated when it’s attached to a fond memory or the feeling a person gave you and not tangibly the person themself. i can see many of you on here are struggling with that right now and i understand.

a few years ago i purchased a home that Liam previously owned. there were rumors the house was haunted. He assured me it was not, and i believed him. because i know the ghosts that haunt us aren’t tethered to buildings. They live in parts of us that are harder to reach and they go wherever we do.

as a parent, a fellow artist, and a fan, i simply cannot fathom this untimely loss. my heart goes out to his family, friends, and the fans. 💔

Did you guys know that I have over 28 SINGLES that are platinum or multi platinum? I have 2 that are diamond. All this is the US alone. I’m also one of the only artists in history to *replace themselves* (!!!) at #1 on the radio.

But. Did you know my most critically acclaimed album was also my worst selling? My only Grammy nominated album is the one without a single hit?

Listen, album time is coming and I see a lot of people nostalgic for the before-times for varying (and opposing) reasons and I just want to say: They won’t all be Manic. They won’t all be If I Can’t Have Love I Want Power. They won’t be Badlands because it won’t be the first time again, and they won’t be HFK because they all have to be different. They are all something new. They all become something unique.

If I wrote music, recorded it, and you listen to it? Then I’ve done what I’ve come here to do. The zeitgeist is fickle. And I just have to do the same thing every time. Write it, record it, release it. How it’s received and how it performs isn’t up to me. It’s not even up to you. (Well it’s a little bit up to you) but mostly it’s up to something entirely cosmic that I co-exist with. I am places I never dreamed I would be.

I can’t wait to see what (or who) The Great Impersonator will become.

This is how I originally wrote it. One of those that starts as a poem and then begs to be a song. I posted a fragment of this on tumblr a while back, but here’s the initial piece in its entirety 🤍