It is with great pleasure, pomp, and circumstance that I announce the release of “Apocalypse You” on our Patreon page. Paid subscribers to our Patreon can grab a copy at their leisure 💛
Juneau, this one’s for you.
-Allēna
If you enjoy our work, go ahead and subscribe to Open Sorcery while you’re at it!
Sometimes having DID and headmates that are JUST as talented as you at both the same things – and different ones – is a fuckin’ gas, y’all.
Back in 2014-ish I wrote a poem that turned into one of my better-known songs about a crush of mine. It was called “My Island”. I was obsessed with the Mutiny on the Bounty for reasons I still can’t quite articulate, and the second verse contains one of my favorite lines I’ve ever written:
“Be the Fletcher to my island, be the Fletcher coming coming home”
I’m not entirely sure why that line gets me so bad more than a decade later. It may be the fact that it’s a reference to Fletcher Christian, leader of the Mutiny on the Bounty, choosing the South Pacific over duty, country, etc., and settling with a few members of his crew in one of the most remote places on Earth, Pitcairn Island, after mutinying, and wanting to feel chosen like that. Maybe it’s my love for history references in general. Maybe it’s that I still yearn for people like I did when I was 14-17 and I struggle to express it now, and I love that line so much because it’s My Peak Teenage Yearning, something I feel like I can’t verbalize anymore, even though I’m arguably more safe now to do so than I was then.
A different cut appeared awhile later on our first album The Mellon Sessionas well:
But my favorite version of “My Island” came much later when Eight was host and he snuck into a church while bored out of his fucking skull to record this absolutely achingly beautiful take of “My Island” for his then-partner Juneau.
I can still feel the longing even now, and his arrangement is so fucking beautiful.
This was the result of a TTRPG roll and it’s called “everything’s coming up lavender”
i was 17 when you first came to me mind threatening to unravel in shades of crimson
now i swear everything's coming up lavender and golden brown, i'm much madder now and while i can't say things are fine in this pit of snakes we live in, at least i feel somewhat safe now that i found the melody i was looking for
the problem is that i sought you high and low in all the wrong places, wrote my best songs and lines to all the wrong people it's sad to say that you found me at my worst, but you loved me anyway
i'm a stubborn piece of shit and i know you know that, so are you that's part of why i love you so fucking much neither of us know when to quit when we know exactly what we want
so are we living the dream? maybe not yet but do we have the grit to get there? absofuckinglutely. and one thing's for certain i know i will never be bored again
so thank you. thank you for not giving up on this raging bitch thank you for sticking it out because i loved you endlessly then and i love you endlessly now
-Allēna 8/3/2025
Here's the TTRPG if you want to snag a copy for yourself!
My poetry writing TTRPG is included in the bundle that just went live today (I’ll include a widget so you can find it directly), and I’ll post links to examples of poems I’ve written using it as well.
The TTRPG:
Some examples:
One Two – “letter to theseus” Three Four – “a brief inquiry into the shape of time” Five – “sin eater” Six – “ariadne’s thread” Seven – “queer pressure”
All six of these poems were written using Infinite Poems, and it’s helped me become a better poet and writer overall. I hope it helps y’all, too. Please don’t hesitate to reach out, tag me in what you make, and share this with your friends, foes, and anyone still under review!
that i didn’t know what it was like to put space between the world and me, so i held everything and everyone at an artificial distance while seeing too close, held everything i ever earned in a vise grip and let myself slip into the grip of my vices
i stared into the void so long that it blinked before i did and then i mistook the deep nothing of it for your eyes until there was nothing left but a deep, deep hole
here’s the thing about an addiction, though - admitting you have it is the first step toward vindication
i think you seared ghosts into my bones down deep into the marrow
and time may be round, but i am forced to remain here suffering, as all of time’s rivers and streams flow back into me and the specters of all the things you whispered and lies you screamed are made to ride with me too
i am not religious, but i am spiritual and i am your confessor, always have been, and i worry i always will be grayscale, amoral, atemporal priest of these jagged streets i am the one person who will never forgive you no matter how hard you try to forget me
where can i go and who can i turn to who can unmake, unbaptize, undo what you did to me when you already tried me by fire and inducted me into your thorny order? so this is my confession: i didn’t want this, no matter how much you think i needed it and this life of yours? you can keep it
when the lightning strikes me back and my cracked-cup mind can no longer hold all the subtle fire it’s meant to contain find me at the edge of a cold, dark place
i wanted to be the lightning, not simply the bearer of it, but sometimes both dream and nightmare outpace me and i cannot find my way home
so if the world begins to slant remind my parched mouth that i am both cupbearer and bitter wine reforge both sides of my twisted spine
i'm not sorry for the wisdom that pours out of me, breaking through the cracks, bursting at the seams i'm one of the rare few that can love to the point of invention, but believe me, I can hate to the point of invention, unapologetically and i'm not sorry for being myself - a gordian knot, a bois d'arc tree, a technicolor, queer, living scream you could never even begin to hope to parse, cut down to size in thirteen lifetimes. i've danced in the space between life and death more times than you've ever given yourself permission to live and you will never destroy me, not even in death. the empires i've built and burned out of beauty and rage, the space i've claimed and wars i've waged to create who i am when you don't even know who you are - and you are twice my age... i'm not sorry for that. i've grown around you. i've loved around you. i've rested around you. i've learned that i didn't fucking deserve any of what you did to me. and i'm not sorry. you should be.