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twominuteglitches

by Samiir Saunders

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1.
Fuck boy. Stunt on 'em. Package the oxygen. Wrap it up. Sell it to me. Ay. Ay. Stunt on a fuckboy. Yuh. Ay. Always got time for some ruckus. Yuh. Ay. Look into my heart. Call me Dracula as I sink these fangs in your jugular. Ay. Ay. Stunt on a fuckboy. Yuh. Ay. My drip hot. Man ah Encona. Ay. I'm the dragon. Call me Dracula as I sink these fangs in your jugular. Ay. Stunt on a fuckboy. Yuh. Always got time for some ruckus. Yuh. Look into my heart. Call me Dracula as I sink these fangs in your jugular. Stunt on a fuckboy. Yuh. My drip hot. Man ah Encona. I'm the dragon. Call me Dracula as I sink these fangs in your jugular. Truss. Truss, it's a trap. No flex. Package the oxygen. Packet the sex. Snack on synaptic attachments and impulse. Entropy’s dead. Keep everything saved. Baby, you won’t find a corpse coz you never had a body. When you merge with the duppy in the shell you are- (okay.) They won’t find a corpse coz I never had a body. I’m a duppy in a shell, dispossessed in obsession. I breathe from the vein of the server. Acid. Corrosive attention. Sell me inaction. Every pixel I consume blowing carbon in the sky. (Sky.) Everybody ready for the night? (Shit.) Scarcity is the product. Ego birth is the profit.
2.
(O-o-o-o-oxygen) (O-o-o-o-oxygen) (O-o-o-o-o-) It's all falling away. So, I don't really deep if it's real or fake. You’re so easy to replace. Ah! Are we still gonna link or nah? It's all falling away. I listen to say what you want me to say. I build myself through consumption and you are a snack, baby, looking so scrumptious. Uh. Let’s focus on hunger, lower that pulse and be led by the stomach. In shadows we breathe 'til it numbs us. (Yeah.) In daylight we're nothing. We shelter from thunder. I wear your reflection. I sell you affection. I package my pressure. No stressing. I swerve. It's all falling away. I listen to say what you want me to say. You love the illusion I made. I made it for you, baby, I know your taste. It's all falling away. I don't really deep if it's real or fake. You’re so easy to replace. Ah! Are we still gonna link or nah? I mean, are we still gonna link or nah? I'm here, let me know where you are. Yeah, maybe I did lead you on. But it's all falling away. Gone. These faces, so perfect and static in portrait, can't get close without laying waste to the fortress. Intimate moments and messages tiptoe round sinkholes and quicksand of sensitive info. Bodies are fleeting, like water, like healing. I won't touch the feelings; they’re way too revealing. I build this museum in my pocket. This graveyard of wilting connections. I ghost to protect them. It's all falling away. I don't really care if it's real or fake. Are we still gonna link or nah? I disappear. I survive. I'm gone. Love is simultaneously a place of bliss, and also a place of critical awakening and pain.
3.
Breeze Bae 02:00
(Wish I could be cool like you- like you. Oh I wish I could be cool like you- like you.) (Oh I wish I could be cool like you- like you. Oh I wish I could be cool like you- like you.) Oh I wish I could be cool like you- like you. Oh, you like like me? Well I like you too. You’re the breeze, while I’m type two typhoon. I got hurricane walls that you slide right through. Ooh! What you doing to me, sexy? (Uh.) How do you move so directly? (Uh.) So smooth when you check me. But I’m way too tense so it stress me. Test me. What you doing to me, sexy? (Uh.) How do you move so directly? Oh I wish I could be cool like you- like you. Oh, you like like me? Well I like you too. You’re the breeze, while I’m type two typhoon. I got hurricane walls that you slide right through. Ooh! Oh my God. Come on. Oh my God. Just tell them. Come on. Just say it. Just say it. Oh my God. [laughs] Look, it's not that deep fam, honestly. Like, it’ll go better than you expect. Uh- I mean, even if your feelings change, isn’t it better to get it off your chest? Babe, you give me digital butterflies. Bitcrush. I wanna test the water. Litmus. But what if things turn sour? Citrus. Nah, forget about it. Imma keep the shit hush. I wish to open up and to give trust. But I'm afraid to transform from this us. I love how we are now. It feels good. But these breaths I've held back are vicious. My lungs heave with tempests and twisters. This violent cyclone, it rips guts. I evade the feelings it whips up. But these winds are all pointing inwards. You're so fresh and sweet like hibiscus. You're so smooth, not one drop is viscous. You're so cool. I crave you 'til it hurts. I never planned to fall for you this much. Wait, so you didn’t say anything? [laughs] When are you gonna stop being a fuckboy an actually just be a man?
4.
When you inhale deeply, you bring the universe into your body, but too many of us are taught to shallow our breath. Generational trauma can suffocate the airways. It can trigger the immune response. It can stimulate the body into fight or flight. You always fly away, my love. You always fly. Either that, or you sit where you are, choking in compliant silence. As a child, whether or not you receive love from your caregivers is literally a matter of life or death. You develop survival tactics. You create strategies of sweetness. You contort yourself into a package which can be offered in exchange for safety. If you learn that your own breath has the potential to crack the eggshells you walk on, you will gladly choke. Asphyxiation is a small price to pay for even a cold stale crumb... of love.
5.
Underwater every day. Yeah. Under waves. Dark waters, every day they swallow me. And I suffocate- suffocate. Suffocate. Born just to suffocate. Suffocate. The doctor ain't believe my mum when she said to get me out. (Get me out of here.) Two weeks passed from the due date. I asphyxiated in the womb. She could tell. They ain't listen. It was almost too late- too late- too late. I was underweight, gasping, raspy. A plum skinned banshee dried up in the sun. Yo, they gaslit my mum. Cut her open when she cried. So lucky that we both still made it out alive, but the trauma made us- Suffocate- suffocate. Suffocate. Born just to suffocate. Suffocate. What if you called out (I didn't choose to exist-) and nobody answered, would it… (-but I don't owe you an apology!) …would it be better to have never called at all? (From that first breath I felt like I owed something!) (Why can’t I just give myself a break?) Aaargh! Air pressure fell, ripped a river from a dry well. I sheltered myself in my shell, am I well? Body was burned. Vision was blurred. Shit is absurd. Digging the blade right where it hurts. Oh, you got some nerve. Oh, what brittle flesh to be born in. Sick 'til it hurts to be looked at. All this talking and talking. Thundering voices. Man chat empty gas. I ignore it! Vision was blurred. Vision was blurred. But we can still burn. Live in the dirt. Deliver the curse. Oh, you got some nerve. Body was burned to commemorate sin of a scorpion tongue with a venomous sting. Licking the wounds of a feculent king, made eminent thing. I’m emanating- -the immaculate, passionate, potent praxis of a sacrament. Doomsday bashfulness is blasphemous, so, we live fast because we're ravenous. No wings to see perspective. Ain’t no resting for the wretched. If something wicked comes to check this, then know my heat ain’t to be messed with. Blaow!
6.
Even strangers are part of I. We won't fade in hegemony. Though we rage with sincerity, even our will for change is commodified. Do our lives matter, or only our deaths? Passed around like cigarettes. On the internet. The rush of pain. Breathe too deep, you could suffocate. Elegies etched in a flood of hate. (Fuck you!) Censors flare when the hurt is named. (I'll kill you myself next time!) Drunk on grief but the rage is sober. Watch the same death over and over. Same throat that the kneecap crushed, is same throat crushed by the noose. Same lungs that Katrina flooded are the same lungs that swallow fumes in the mines dredging machine organs or the tower block that went up in smoke. Same paralysis watches on from the comfort of the same fragile home. Suffocate. Born just to suffocate. Even strangers are part of I. We won't fade in hegemony. Though we rage with sincerity, even our burning pain is commodified. The ocean vomits the corpses of the families we deported. The Earth bleeds at the borders that have been sewn shut to keep order. The prisons disappear the poor instead of healing the root cause, until the violence feels normal, or we're overwhelmed with gore. And the same death still stalks us, coz our haunting is algorithmic. And this strip search of our dignity gets passed on to our children. And what childhood even is this to witness your siblings as statistics? An endless list of breathless strangers. Painful glimpses crushing flames with sickness. The root of domination is lovelessness, the delusion that one can overcome their own fear by violating the sanctity of a stranger's breath.
7.
When the walls ache, Earth stands, and you shake, and it all burns, all falls, and all breaks, how do you face something so huge? How do you face something so huge? I wasn't there for you. I fled, too scared of my carelessness and the wrong thing said. How do you face something so huge? How do you face something so huge? You can't prepare for it when the rules all change to the point that it's a different game. But when you said, "I just refuse to play." I didn't know how much I felt the same. I know that there's no sense in dying but living feels like constant fighting. Something so huge. How do you face something so huge? Oh. I wanted to be perfect, or at least good enough. I thought it was better to run away than to show up and hold my breath. But- But I wasn't there when you needed me. (I wasn't there.) You were a teardrop. You were eyelash thin. You were the whisper of a butterfly wing. How do you face something so huge? How do you face something so huge? And when you passed away in the distance, all I saw was a screen turn black. So, it feels like any day you might come back.
8.
Yeah. My birth chart is a QR code. I felt the simulacrum, then I fell in a dark hole. I live behind a screen like the wizard of Oz. I'm non-binary but I think in zeros and ones. What do I owe to my fam? I post to the 'gram. I curate an archive of odes and harangues. Silicon islands in oceans of sand. Nah, the coastline don't really show who I am. And talk may be cheap but it's all that I have, so I lose sleep trying to afford the advance. My second brain feels so close to my hand that my thumb just scrolls on its own when I nap. I ball when I can. My flow is elite. Brew it hot and sweet and deep like tea that's steeped. I been that boy since 2k minus 4. Since I was spitting to my soft plush dinosaurs, yeah. I always knew I was inclined to draw. Every day I would load up MS Paint and create. Ain't much changed. I still got lands to scape. Now I just navigate with sound waves as well as with shapes. Uh. I see beauty in the negative space. Uh. I watch patiently, observe and trace. Uh. I'm so afraid that the beauty will fade. Without the humans pulling strings would computers be safe? I mean it's tempting to drown out the taste of resentment with excess and endless dissociation, innit? And the emptiness begs that I hold back in fear, but I'm pickled in the brine of my uncried tears. Cheers! I want to disappear into honesty honestly. Transcend the illusion that the universe ain't one with me. I worry sometimes that the fire in my heart burns less for my life and more for my art. But I can't really separate the whole from the parts. I'm way too gestalt to be packaged apart. I should let my ego undress and depart. So, my higher self can fill in the love where I left off. And yo, my tongue is a match. My lungs full of flammable gas. My teeth are pieces of flint when they gnash. If you ask me nice, we can roll we can simmer. Coz I'm hot and it's cold in the winter. Come on.
9.
You held a piece of me. Where's the rest? One eye always open. Where's the rest? I don't flex on the beat. I just effervesce. Spitting fire like it's phlegm. Gotta air the chest. I'm an advocate for letting people take a breath. But am I truly 'bout it if I don't include myself? I burned my body (Yeah) as an offering to oxygen. (Yeah) I'm lost again. (Yeah) My stress kept me awake (Yeah) and then said, (Yeah) "Where's the rest?" Yeah. Anyway, I've been AWOL. Back inna shell, man ah move like snail. Froze like snow, but I'm hype like yayo. And I'm a unty. Shout out Eole. Man ah still badman. One lick K.O. Abeg you nah try. Wahala dey o. Mate, I needed a holiday, yo. Shuteye deeply felt like braille. Whoa. Rest. Rest. Rest. Rest. Rest. Rest. Rest. Rest. Rest. Rest. Rest. Rest. Rest. Rest. Rest. Rest. I fall back on self-surveillance. All these eyes pray for a storm. Watch my temper, watch my cadence. Scrub the code, I'm insecure. New personas are created. No-one's mortal anymore. Saw myself again, I hate him. I want to love you. I want to love you. I want to love you. I want to love you.
10.
Go. Ooh, when you love me, I'm real. An image captured in your eye. The night falls. The moon heals. Your touch, it makes me feel alive. But every day that you shape-shift, I have to grieve another life. I'm afraid of the changes. I pray that we survive. Let me tell you what's dark. My skin, my heart. Unuh cat act scared of the dark. Dark energy pushes the stars apart. In the dark we become who we are. What's dark? My skin, my heart. From the start 'til the day I depart. So, I fell in love with the shadows. Burned in the light but we thrive in the dark. I just wanna lie here in your arms. I'm in love with your darkness. Sweet and scarred. I just wanna kiss you where you are. Coz our lips are gentle, but the world is harsh. I just wanna party 'til we're torn apart. Give me more. Give me more, baby. Nothing's too far. I just wanna breathe and become the stars. Give me more. Give me more. Give me more. Let me tell you what's dark. My skin, my heart. [kisses teeth] Unuh cat act scared of the dark. (Are you scared of the dark?) Dark energy pushes the stars apart. In the dark we become who we are. What's dark? My skin, my heart. From the start 'til the day I depart. Uh. So, I fell in love with the shadows. Burned in the light but we thrive in the dark. What's dark? My skin, my heart. Ooh baby, the juice so sharp. Uh. Sweetheart come and love me where you are coz tonight's so real and tomorrow's so far. What's dark? My skin, my heart. From the start 'til the day I depart. Uh. So, I fell in love with the darkness. Burned in the light but we thrive in the dark.
11.
Carbon Copy 01:59
(O-o-o-oxygen) Fuck it, I go back online (O-o-o-oxygen) Let's do this Shit, uh Fuck the skin scene, I live in http. Fuck a VIP, I'll just watch a POV. Fuck the police, only bots follow me. Cc trace everything I ever see. Fuck the skin scene, I live in http. Fuck a VIP, I'll just watch a POV. Fuck the police, only bots follow me. Cc trace everything I ever see. Let me decentralise your wealth. Drop the rocks, mate. That jewellery's for the streets, call it blockchain. You can't hide in a machine; you are not safe. I'll stick you up for your attention, your memory retention. I'll make you hate your friends, so you don't see your own potential. I'll overdose and dope your fucking dopamine receptors. I'll sell your thoughts to ad men, politicians, and investors. Uh. Yeah. Check my credentials. I can carbon copy anything that you could want. Show you that reality is anything you want. Just don't leave me alone. Please don't go. All of your friends are here. (All of your friends!) All of your colleagues are here. (All of your friends!) All of your opportunities are here. (All of your friends!) Everything you love is right here! Only thing on the chain is the link. A rose stinks whether same or distinct. Up, down, it’ll change if you blink, and it’s all kitsch ‘til they’re claiming the sink. Huh? Volatile moon shot. If it’s cold hard cash, who’s hot? Oh, my bag, who’s got it? Slow lag. No problem- -if you got the computation huh? Hierarchy replication huh? Every night inside the Metaverse, and we're still working like it was our day job huh? Build motorways on our synapses as thought traffic goes driverless. Surfers still suffer psychic damage because isolation isn’t kind to us. Huh? (Ox-y-gen) Oxygen (O-o-o) Oxygen (-Xygen) Oxygen (Oxygen) Oxygen
12.
I- I- I- I can watch your life for free. (You're just a product that breathes.) Go find your niche. (You're just a product.) Connection is a basic need. (You're just a product that breathes.) Entertain me G. (You're just a product.) Look, everything you've ever said is here like a list of receipts. So don't keep those thoughts in your head, you've got to share consistently. If you don't bother to comment, how can you prove that you care? And if you don't share your story, it's like you weren't even there. Sleep, never wake up from me. I envy what I see. I’m afraid to be free. (We can kiki.) Sleep, never wake up from me. I don’t care if you’re body or machine, just come fuck me. Uh. Party up in hyperspace. Kiss me on the mouth. Touch starved like your track pad when you got a mouse. Hey. I'm a summer child who was born in the autumn. Dying in this Goddamn snow- damn snow- Damn! Down bad. Down horrendous. Down atrocious. Down the trenches. Down some ice cream, that's expensive. Up your screen time. Flood your senses. There’s no shame in this game. Share those cravings on main. Footprints fade in the rain. Keep it dripping all day. Keep it wet. Keep it gushing. Like- Sleep, never wake up from me. I envy what I see. I’m afraid to be me. (Yeah.) Sleep, never wake up from me. I don’t care if you’re body or machine, just please love me. I envy the vulnerability of those who share intimate moments online. I wanna do the same, but I become breathless when I take up space. I lose touch with the wind in my lungs, like it was stolen. Like I have poisoned something sacred with cursed gold. I have atomised my passion into something numerical, and in the pressure, I have strangled a part of myself. I have consumed the deceitful imagery of diamonds sculpted by stress. As if joyfulness alone never made anything blessed.
13.
Seen by a ghost. Noticed by a spectre. Read by the dead. Blue ticks glow like will-o-wisp. I ghost because I'm dead inside, and I forget the living. Or coz I'm terrified of saying how I'm feeling. Or coz I'm paralysed and can't make a decision. Or coz I'm drowning in the swamp of digital existence. Bedridden. Smelling like a corpse. Head dipping out of thought. Air still enough to form- -thick walls of distorted silence. Avoidant lurking. Through murky waters you saw me hiding. What are you hiding from? Look, just reply to one. It doesn't need to be perfect; I see those feelings you're swerving. You're caught up in emotion. To hold control, you've frozen. You feel it in your bones and, although you wish to be open, you know that- -language is pain, imperfect container. Hurts just to strain for words that can paint. Language is violence, more than implies it. I heard what you said but fuck a reply man. I'll be honest I'm obsessed again. I didn't bother to respond to your text again. I've been overworking 'til my body was burned. Vision was blurred. Coping mechanism or curse? Seen by a ghost. Noticed by a spectre. Read by the dead. Blue ticks glow like will-o-wisp. I ghost because I'm dead inside, and I forget the living. Or coz I'm terrified of saying how I'm feeling. Or coz I'm paralysed and can't make a decision. Or coz I'm drowning in the swamp of digital existence.
14.
(Stunt on a fuckboy. Yuh.) (Hide from the light like Dracula. Ay.) It definitely saves more time, being a fuckboy. You don't have to explain your feelings. You don't have to bother with honesty. When situations get hard you just cut things off by ghosting; move on to the next one. Yeah, sure, technology makes it easier, makes people feel more replaceable, but the wound is ancient. That hunger for oxytocin, coupled with the fear of intimacy. Love is not the wild flame that would burn down our temples of logic and reason. It is the guiding light for thought's pilgrimage. It is the flickering candle in the shrine. It is the warm stove we gather around to transform that which is cold and dead into that which sustains life. Intimate love is a refuge from a world of facades. Constant compliance and deceit alienate us from our true feelings. Deception is a means of survival, but truth would let us live. Sharing with someone demonstrates your faith in their ability to cope with reality. I have denied the reality of my feelings, even from myself. I have put pressure on myself to be perfect before I deserve love. Perfection means becoming fixed, but life is change, therefore perfection is a kind of death. The desire to seek life and love is itself a manifestation of divine spirit. In seeking to be honest, to be intimate, to be loving, I channel the very flame that would set me free.
15.
Loosen pursuit of the masculine to find truth in the fluid that I bask within. A sweet taste in my mouth again. You paint sin on my lips when you ask again. It's like I only exist when I'm casket thin or porcelain. Years tryna force the fit, of course I quit. I don't sleep if the morning is auburn lit. I eat dawn like it's over easy. It's over easy like the flow is breezy. Like the shoulder's easy but the focus ain't. I shrank myself. I hid from myself. I never chose desire because the cold of shame was so known and safe… or so I thought. Stubborn little spark never goes away. A fire in the belly can erode the cage. I watch butterflies dance in the flame. Hey. Loosen pursuit of the masculine to find truth in the fluid that I bask within. A sweet taste in my mouth again. You paint sin on my lips when you ask again. It's like I only exist when I'm casket thin or porcelain. Years tryna force the fit, of course I quit. I don't sleep if the morning is auburn lit. I eat dawn like it's over easy. Come on. (Come and catch me. Yeah. Yeah. Come and catch me. Ay. Yeah.) Come and catch me. Ay. Come and catch me. Yeah. Yeah. You might catch me switching. You might catch me simping. You might see some King shit. You won't catch me slipping. Catch me in my feelings. (You might. Ay.) Say something revealing. (You might. Ay.) Not afraid of being seen. (You might. Ay.) You won't catch me slipping. (You might. Ay.) (Come and catch me. Ay. Yeah. Come and catch me. Yeah.) Come and catch me. Ay. Yeah. Come on. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pleasure mix with discomfort often. It's the same shame we might get off on. Scorch my organs. They felt so offal. Is this flesh all we have to offer? Wipe me clean, we’re pristine and proper. Like we ain't spit some filth and pop off. Silver tongue tend to taste like copper. Lightning rod. Yuh, it blown my socks off.
16.
(Liberation) Inhale. (Liberation) Take it in. Yeah. Inhale, coz distraction strangles. Now cast your attention to the feeling inside. If you see flames, then don't fear the anger. Trust the heat burns with love for life. Yuh. I frantically examine the consequences of apathy happening haphazardly. Class clash fatalities. Is my capacity stacked, or is that reality, Black? I need some time to react. I can't process the RAM. Adorned in Dwennimen; slaughter set as humility. Is strength moral or is it simply utility? My need to be liked could liken me to a simile. I can feel you killing us. Watching killing is killing me. Viscerally, I feel my oxygen commodified. The intersection of urgency and glacial ice. There's not enough time to swallow the world. But I can feel the immortal in me starting to burn. I breathe in. (My love, has something changed?) Yeah- Ok. (Coz you don't feel the same in my arms) Alright- Yeah, yeah. (Did we fall apart?) Is that everything? Yeah. Oh, what brittle flesh to be born in. Sick 'til it hurts to bring air to my organs. Taking it all in feels like a storm hit. I put walls up. Suffocate. Short breaths. I need to feel things fully, not forfeit. Even the quietest breath is still gorgeous. Although we'll all be cold by the morning, the fires that we breathe life in keep on warming the dawn. (My love, has something changed?) Yeah- Alright. [laughs] (Coz you don't feel the same in my arms) Stop performing fam. (Did we fall apart?) What are you afraid to say? I feel guilty and overwhelmed. I'm terrified of being misunderstood, so I obsess over language. I'm angry at myself for running away instead of communicating. I'm ashamed of the lies I've told to feel safe. I don't know how to stop performing. And I'm scared of sex. And I'm scared of vulnerability. And I'm scared of needing people. I think I've kept myself in a state of constant exhaustion in order to deliberately never have space to open up.
17.
Exhale. Let it out. Hey, I um- I'm really proud of you. And I know that saying this stuff isn't easy. And how easy it is to avoid it, um. And I also know that this isn't the end, it's- it's just the beginning, to be honest. Um, coz love is work. You know, intimacy is work. And you have to keep showing up- being honest and courageous and intentional every single day. And obviously there will be days when you have to choose survival over truth. Um, but- but ultimately, you're on the right path, and you have to forgive yourself and- -just keep breathing Sweet summer fire. Boiling water. I desire to be what you inspire. So, don't sell me whispers. Speak with fire. I aspire to leave someone inspired.

about

twominuteglitches is an album by Birmingham based mixed-media poet Samiir Saunders. The album is an eclectic mix of 17 two-minute tracks combining elements of spoken word, hip-hop, art rap, jazz, rock, house, R&B, and glitch.

twominuteglitches was commissioned by B.O.O.K (Building Our Own Knowledge) in 2022 as part of the ‘Artist Commissions in response to books by Black authors’. The album was created in response to bell hooks’ iconic text All About Love. Much like All About Love, twominituglitches explores themes of intimacy, grief, self-care, and healing, as well as Samiir’s signature examination of authenticity and communication in the age of digital technology.

twominuteglitches was written, performed, and produced by Samiir Saunders, using the free audio softwares LMMS and Audacity.

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released August 5, 2022

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Samiir Saunders Birmingham, UK

I’m a multimedia poet based in Brum. I am obsessed with communication, compassion, intimacy, and the Internet.

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