my art for the song “brother, are you proud of me?” by @VyletPony

“Mentally, physically, realistically, I am in such a better place in my life now. Ironically, this has caused me to be in the worst possible mental state. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I’ve finally had time in the past few years to actually examine my life and to process things which have stayed on the backburner for a long time. I’m really a mess, and it’s been difficult because it’s hard to know where my fault is and how much of the fault lies in the people and places that influenced me when I was most impressionable. I have felt this way for several years now, but 2023 has really caused all of this to spill over fully. I contextualize that a lot with Pedro, what he would think of me now, for better or for worse. I think about how far away that safety of our friendship was now.

But I think among all the filth, I know I’ve also become someone I’m proud of and become the artist I’ve wanted to be. So I look back and wonder how Pedro would feel about that too, even if we have grown away independently of each other. In the “CUTIEMARKS” booklet, I included his yearbook note to me which read:

“we had a hell of a year, and it was pretty sick haha we got to make more songs, maybe we can get famous, well you might haha thanks bro”

With “CUTIEMARKS” as a moment in time, I feel like the amount I’ve changed as a person and improved as an artist is far more than my entire life combined.

I don’t really play basketball anymore, I was never really good at it. Maybe I’ll play again someday. Because of Pedro, it really is the only sport where I can tell what’s happening.”