An imaginator

as it all unravels

my words

I see you in the curl of steam rising from my coffee,

the way it dances upward, disappearing before I can grasp it.

You are the color of the sky before the sun sinks,

that fleeting, bruised light—beautiful,

but impossible to hold.

In every stranger’s laugh,

I wait for the cadence of yours,

even though I know it won’t come.

Your shadow lingers in places you’ve never been,

pressed into the cracks of sidewalks,

etched on the surface of quiet waters.

You’ve become the breath of the world,

woven into air, into time, into me.

Even in the silence,

you hum beneath it all.

How do I miss you

I turn back, maybe this was a bad idea, and took a step back from the sea. But one look at the black clouds blocking the sunlight, hearing the thunder rumble, made me shiver and back away.

Ah, yes I remember now. The sea looks so calm, welcoming compared to the storm behind me, threatening to catch up to me.

So, I take a step forward and I fall. For a short second, I felt like I was flying, like I was free.

Then the gravity pulls me down and whoosh, the wind rushes through my ears. It only lasts a second before I collided with the freezing water below.

My eyes widened with shock, it was colder than I had imagined. But that shock slowly transitioned into a feeling of calmness and peace.

I look up towards the surface, and all I see is a past reflection of myself. Who I was.

Smiling happily as I race through the park and giggling as my aunt catches up to me. Jumping up and down a trampoline as my mother looks at me fondly. Cheering as I won a game and shared a high-five with my dad.

My hands subconsciously reach towards that image, my mind yearning for that type of warmth once more, but as the top of my finger graze the surface, the water rippled and the image disappeared, in its place the truth.

Crying as my mom drags me away from the playground and puts me in the piano, instructing me not to get off that chair until I practice for at least an hour. Getting tucked into bed by not my parents, but my teacher. Feeling like I wasnt good enough for my parents to want to stay with me.

My hand jerks itself away from the image as my eyes slowly water and close itself. Can we even cry underwater?

It's going to be over, all the overwhelming feelings, the feeling of my heart clenching itself all the time, the tears streaming down my face. It's gonna stop now.

My lips quirked up, just barely noticable, I don't even remember how freedom feels like anymore, but from books, from movies, from imagination, I know that it feels good.

It's alright if I take a short nap right? Just a short break. Just a break from the emotions spilling over the cup, and the world lifted from my shoulders for just a short moment.

I’m elated to tell you that my 9th studio album, and folklore’s sister record, will be out tonight at midnight eastern. It’s called evermore. To put it plainly, we just couldn’t stop writing songs. To try and put it more poetically, it feels like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music. We chose to wander deeper in. I’ve never done this before. In the past I’ve always treated albums as one-off eras and moved onto planning the next one after an album was released. There was something different with folklore. In making it, I felt less like I was departing and more like I was returning. I loved the escapism I found in these imaginary/not imaginary tales. I loved the ways you welcomed the dreamscapes and tragedies and epic tales of love lost and found into your lives. So I just kept writing them. And I loved creating these songs with Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff, WB, and Justin Vernon. We’ve also welcomed some new (and longtime) friends to our musical kitchen table this time around…

You see a post like this? Where OP might hurt/kill themselves? You hit that button that I circled

Hit that.

Click Suicide or Self-harm Concern

Yes.

Fill in the rest of it, and hit submit. The "content you reported" will fill itself in

Tumblr will follow up and help them.

Warning: this is only for mobile. If anyone knows how to do this for desktop, please add it!

This could SAVE SOMEONE'S LIFE.

YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE NOT TO REBLOG THIS.

I DON'T GIVE A FUCK IF IT DOESN'T GO WITH YOUR BLOG'S THEME.

And yes, REBLOG. Liking does no shit at all. This isn't ig.

You reblog, people see it. You don't, people don't see it. This shit's that simple.