𝒫𝑜𝓂 𝒫𝑜𝓂 𝒮𝓆𝓊𝒶𝒹

Tomorrow I’m 29 and today my first substack essay is finally out ♡ I was inspired by the industry adage “you have your whole life to write your first album and a year to write your second”. In this essay, I’m focusing on the former half of the sentiment (essay on the latter half later) and talking about my life leading up to the release of Death of a Cheerleader — being a spooky kid, writing my first songs, how I became obsessed with the cheerleader archetype and moreeee. This one’s reallllyy personal (tw eating disorders, sexual harassment) - love u v much . ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪

“I often joke that I was a haunted child. My favorite song from the earliest age I can remember was The Beatles “Eleanor Rigby” which Shelby clowns me for whenever the conversation comes up – as a kid she found the song terrifying.“

“I harbored a secret hope that its magic would rub off on me – that I’d be subtly transformed like when the weird girl in a rom-com takes off her glasses only to reveal she’s been stunningly beautiful behind them all along. Instead I just felt like my body was wrong — un-disciplined and soft where it should be taut, stout where it should be long and lean – like if the uniform was the setup, my body in it was the punchline.”

“When I stepped onto the stage, something overtook me – a kind of self assuredness I’d never felt in my life. The voice that projected into the small crowd seemed so different from my own. Commanding and clear and confident.”

I used to bristle slightly when people called DoaC a coming-of-age record (I was just shy of twenty-four by the time it came out) but in retrospect, I can acknowledge some level of truth. I was coming into my own.

Thanks for reading ♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧