The Darkest Alley: Light Asylum at Absolution Fest 2023

This is what happened that night in August of 1994.

The second night of Absolution Fest, I was already exhausted, but I knew I needed to be near the stage when Shannon Funchess of Light Asylum came on. I didn’t know then how much that decision mattered. I only knew I loved her voice—and I needed to feel more enveloped in the sound, especially if she was gonna do “Dark Allies.” I was also ready for an experience we now call an “extinction burst.” Be

You already know I was attacked, don’t you? I just haven’t confirmed that until right now. But that plain fact doesn’t stand in place of what I feel is the real value of telling our stories—connection, mutual understanding, and an end to the lonely lens through which we see our lives.

Your assignment is to first listen to these songs for future reference or you’ll get confused.

So, here’s what I’m gonna talk about: !~ was a recovering Christian in 1994 when I met That Guy—only about 3 years out—and he manipulated pretty dirty. He had tickets to Tori Amos’s Under the Pink tour, which kept me attached. And then…..he took it and some of my sanity.

Hearts of Dust

So, just give a moment to tell you a little more about That Guy before we return to the Light Asylum set. It matters.

I was raised in conservative churches—one was Evangelical and the other Southern Baptist—and I was the best little scripture girl ever. Until about 12, I was the most devout child you could ever meet. I believed that God was a father until I stopped believing he cared or even existed¹.

I was whip-smart. Passionate. Talented. Rageful.

When we’re lying in the dirt, broken and lost, we’re looking up so we can breathe. We’re looking up, but if you’re raised in Christianity, you’re also looking up for God to come and save you—or Mary, though being raised Calvinist creates a mystical eye toward Mary when you’re old enough to ask, but not old enough to question all of it, yet.

Who could save me that night, when I was just 18, 5’4, and 105 pounds against a beast of an adult 9 years older? I still had braces. It’s disgusting.

Oh, god! Where is the deus machina I was promised?

He was 28 and a gym addict, known in the punk pits and skate parks, and this was enough to become the receiver of jealous girls and gay friends. He was fixated on my weight; it was so weird. If you asked him, he’d brag that I was 105 pounds. He was a bellhop in a tourist town; he had a whole lil cult around him.

But not me. Never me. And that drove him insane.

Christopher couldn’t stand that I didn’t love him—you can’t love a manipulator; you’ve never actually met one. Who they are is someone they believe nobody will ever love, and they keep proving themselves right in a system they’ve built.

They invent themselves to gain access, then resent you because they know you loved the person they invented. They didn’t allow you to love who they are, so you can’t.

His abuse kept me around, but I still saw him for what he was. He was a terrible writer with the worst poetry ever. He broke his nose job in a pit once. The clumsy schemes to impress our English profs sucked. I stayed because, once I left my ex, he saw what I didn’t have anymore. What was that?

Get ready to vomit a lil bit.

Food and shelter, without my grandmother attacking me and insulting me incessantly². I ran to the only place I felt was open to me, and the exchange was abuse. It’s also kind of sad that I couldn’t see that there were other options than an abusive beast of a dude who couldn’t even protect his nose job.

Lies Are Control. Lies Are Abuse.

Standing in Crowbar, I was leveling with myself about all of my relationships, and they’re all part of my story—we learn to love what is on offer from the earliest moments of our lives. And Christopher took my live music from me, or that’s how the teenage girl in me has always felt, and I always invent ways to get it back. It’s a glorious pattern.

Showing up at Absolution Fest in 2023 was a way to reclaim my love of post-punk, synth, and industrial music, after my 12 years as a fixture in Orlando’s local rock scene. It’s not like my ex is anything like That Guy, to be clear, but something I will maintain until I’m dead is that lies are control and abuse.

Lies remove your ability to consent. Lies control your response. Lies box you into a life you can’t know exists if you only believe the lies.

Light Asylum’s set at Absolution Fest was powerful, especially on such a small stage. Shannon Funchess’s live voice is something beyond, more expansive than Crowbar. Every time I see a Light Asylum show announcement, I know it’s not them, but maaaybe a lil hope exists in my heart. I’m attached, now, and you’re gonna learn why (beyond the gorgeous musical talent).

I want to be clear: artistic intent matters, and I try to honor it. But meaning isn’t always fixed. Sometimes, a performance collides with your inner world and lights up something you didn’t plan to confront.

When I say “Dark Allies” took me back to 1994, I don’t mean in any neat, literal way. My flashback wasn’t about drugs—but it did have a twinge of religion in my moments of terror and desperation. I wanted deliverance; I had to do it instead. This is all about trauma, memory, and how music can dig up the moments we’ve buried deep in the dirt.

That’s how Tori Amos winds up here, too. Because if I trace the thread back, it starts exactly where you'd expect from me: concert tickets. Not just any concert tickets, tickets to the Under the Pink tour. Small venue. I never made it. That fcken HURTS.

Sometimes, a poetic mind makes everything feel overdetermined—my brain being a prime example of magical thinking. And memoir, for me, has always walked that line: Is this what it means, or am I just looking for patterns? The answer is: yes.

In Vain

What I had were concert tickets to see a newer artist who would shortly take the main stage for an entire generation of young women who were dying to end the pain we couldn’t name.

Christopher used that concert as a way to keep pinging what I wanted like dangling the keys to my own car because I couldn’t afford concert tickets at that age. God, it’s all so sad.

First of all, FUCK YOU, CHRISTOPHER. *clears throat*

In early 1994, I was a community college student, starting to suspect I might be smarter than people thought—even if my friends were still sharper. What set me apart was how raw I was, and how little I cared about doing what was expected of a girl. I started to get the idea that TG was into me.

What gave it away, young me? The giant stuffed bear in February? The consistent offering of your favorite snacks? The weird praise for everything you ever wrote?

B had just introduced us to Little Earthquakes as a response to my obsession with her single “God” from Under the Pink. Little Earthquakes is an excruciating experience, like a bloodletting, with confessional, sexual energy; Under the Pink felt like a dreamy pop interlude between that and Boys for Pele. Gen X was rejecting Boomer ideas about sex—there was no revolution in their sex, we said.

In 1994, it was defiant for Tori Amos to play a Bösendorfer with her legs open while grinding on it, like “this is the ‘Rolls Royce’ of pianos…watch me fuck it.”

Amos’ shtick was sexy as hell. It felt liberating to sing about things people weren’t addressing enough—our sexual gratification in multiples on an average night, Sapphic beauty, trauma bonds, and deeply romantic platonic love.

I feel like Amos in a room was like the last episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer where all the potentials in the world become slayers, but it’s bisexual girls.

From now on, every girl in the world who might be a bisexual, will be a bisexual. Every girl who could have that sexuality, will have that sexuality. Can play with her legs spread, will play with her legs spread. Bisexuals. Every one of us.

All I could afford to eat were eggs. It was all I knew how to cook, and I barely made anything at the drugstore.

He started with snacks—then one day invited me over and laid out a big plate of cheese, crackers, and gherkins. Looking back, it’s painfully clear: I was a cute, starving girl, and he knew it.

That poor girl just wanted a meal. And some sleep. But also? Concert tickets.

But…..what I wanted to feel was not only the plain fact that I was going to be near Tori Amos, but also because I wanted to know what I’d feel enveloped in her sound.

Would I feel empowered? Would she see my face and know I exist? What’s an inside concert like? I bet there will be other girls like me there! I bet I’ll write the best poetry after that!

And then….I know that I didn’t go to that show because of a man, a bruised body, a bloody foot, and the pain in my body from panicking. He took that from me. I will stand resolute in this feeling, whether it’s logical to you or not. I couldn’t go to shows much for years, and when I did, I felt terrified about the environment. I’ve fully blocked a few shows I did attend.

My friends were nonplussed about what my problem was because I couldn’t know it was another equation in my life.

trauma (fear of the unknown) + ADHD + Autism = I won’t go or I won’t remember it.

Even now, live music feels like defiance. I’m almost 50, and every show I go to still feels like I’m telling him: fuck you. HAHA, look-a me, I’m going to a show, YOU FUCKING LIL BITCH. Yeah. *punches the sky* fuck you, Chris

Face Up In The Dead Leaves, My Love³

My mother and I. I was 19, so around that time.

So, the night that Shannon Funchess performed, I was already exhausted from the first night of the festival, but I’d been looking forward to her set. I didn’t know as much about her then as I would come to later, but I knew enough to prioritize her set and move closer…closer….

Very, very close.

When she was setting up, I was excited because I wanted to see what she’d be like live, and the entire room was just as excited as Blackwell, Best, and I. Her voice is incredible live. She has this presence, despite being on this tiny stage where not everyone could bring their whole setup, she blew us away.

I’m telling you, that talent. That presence. That voice. That mix of cascading sounds punched by a beat. I love it so, so much—and, after this event, I added “Dark Allies” to my morning playlist and it was the song I started every day with for a full year, including the time I was in Tennessee.

I’m not overstating this, I promise. It was every fucking morning because, after this experience….it feels like my memory of my broken self ripping my entire foot wth a chain link fence to get free. It was like I could remember that I’m overcoming everything by remembering where I was:

Because I did that on the night I ate dirt. That’s what I did.

We get weird with trauma and music, right?

The opening tones of “Dark Allies” are unmistakable and I felt like it made me feel a little dreamy and wistful, but it wasn’t my first time hearing that song and I’d already thought about that closed-in sidewalk, even when it wasn’t really relevant to the song itself.

And then…….she was talking about something⁴…and then the next part came in, and I felt strangely captive. I was already thinking about something I didn’t want to, but then it hit me: He’s still fucking with my music, isn’t he? Isn’t he? He won, didn’t he?

I barely got much of herFunchess launched her vocals. NAIL ME TO THE CROSS IN THE DARKEST ALLEY!

The logistics of this are that the sidewalk in question runs between an apartment building wall and a giant chain-link fence. You’re boxed in. That was by his design.

Know what I didn’t get? A video of her performing “Dark Allies.” *facepalm*

Heartbeat. Heartbeat. *WHAM* Straight into C-PTSD brain:

My back was hurting. I was looking up. Like I was dead, but also in a dream. I can’t move. Why can’t I move? I think I’m crying. Dirt. My hair hurts; that hurts my scalp. Dirt. Dirt in my mouth. My cheek is in the dirt, and then I’m looking up. Hot air on my ear. Hot air.

There’s an echo….YOU FUCKING BITCH! WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN DO THIS TO ME? GET UP, YOU FUCKING BITCH!

OKAY, TIME OUT.

Breathe.

You’re safe. I’m safe. Your body is safe. Your secondary trauma isn’t a given; it’s a possibility, but if this is your kind of trauma, then maybe we can watch yours next….together.

Sometimes, a poetic mind makes everything feel overdetermined—my brain being a prime example of magical thinking. And memoir, for me, has always walked that line: Is this what it means, or am I just looking for patterns? The answer is: yes.

Heartbeat. Heartbeat. Crickets. The sound of feet on dead leaves.

There’s a pause in my memory as I started to realize that there was danger, but it’s that amygdala shut-down that’s so hard to explain—but I didn’t know what that was on that night in 1994. How could I? What does it mean if our brain paralyzes us in one second, but propels us forward the next?

My brain started doing what all brains do quickly to keep us safe: calculating or mapping out the terrain for escape routes. Do this once in a moment of true fear and you’ll always do it. You will always do it, you just work to let it pass through.

Do I move left and just run? Is that….wait….what is he doing?

His hand brushed up against mine as he leaves the apartment behind me, but he’s moving purposefully. What the fuck is he doing? We pause. He’s breathing heavy and he looks….wild. The energy around me makes me feel like I’ve picked up the phone and someone is talking.

The sidewalk in question is between the wall of the apartment building and a thick chainlink fence and it’s late at night. There were enough lights to see what he was doing, but it had this weird psychological effect of feeling like a dark night with a spotlight. That’s how your memory records the drama, I think.

This was the moment I knew to be terrified, but this man was strong and fast on his feet. I began to step backwards to look left beyond the apartment’s door, where his mother was standing, but no response. Today, I’d say to her: special place in hell, lady.

HEY!

I stopped like it wasn’t a choice. He pivoted, raised his arm, flicked his wrist—then BANG/RATTLE—it was my keys hitting the cement. A dark feeling passed through me, like I was creating a ghost.

I was frozen, rooted in place, the way survivors know all too well. Part of me was calculating; the other was floating above, watching.

He seemed like a joke to me—but still, I knew to be afraid. When he moved, something snapped. I heard it. Felt it. That snap jolted me back into myself, like my body was reacting before I could think.

The memory feels a bit like I’m standing in front of a carnivorous species of “Bro.”

His movement snapped me back—sudden and sharp, like a sound I could hear in my bones. Maybe that’s the synesthesia, but it felt like 0 to 60 in a blink.

I gasped, then heard a scream—probably mine. The kind that escapes without permission, sounding like someone else. I was an atheist, still am, but in that moment, I looked for something—anything—to save me.

Of course, I talked to God. Of course I did. Where was my promised deus ex machina?

Just….not in words I can remember.

He’s closer and closer and WHAM.

Note: I’m leaving in the tense shifts because that’s a sign of lived trauma returning to confuse the past and the present.

He had slammed his chest into mine. I believe he put his foot behind one of my ankles to knock me off my balance, but my memory is kind of just that feeling of soaring toward the ground, with this feeling in my chest that I’m fairly certain was me trying to breathe.

My back hit the ground in a dirt section just between where the sidewalk met the walkway. There was a grainy feeling of dirt in my mouth, then a sharp pain on my scalp, it’s like my body came back online enough to register where I was.

I’m on the ground. There’s dirt in my mouth, I’m looking sideways, but I’m also looking up. I can’t explain that moment, hot tears…hot air….dry leaves taste awful.

This ground is the worst-tasting ground. I can’t spit it out.

He had me pinned on the ground, lying on top of me, a fistful of my hair in his grasp to pull my head to the side to shout into one of my ears while the other ear and that cheek were shoved into the dirt and leaves.

I’m like a lot of people in that we have a referential ricochet of song lyrics our brains dip into when it feels relevant.

He started shouting into my exposed ear.

YOU FUCKING BITCH! WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN DO THIS TO ME, YOU FUCKING BITCH! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, YOU FUCKING BITCH!

It was so loud in my ear that I think it triggered my next move, because guess what, I’m a Saxon, bitch⁵.

I wiggled out of that and I must have kneed him to get up, but I know that I gave this man the slap of his life, hard enough because it stings for a second and rings their ears. But that might have been a mistake, to be honest.

He looked like he was going to explode with rage, and the next thing I remember is…a crying sound, which is probably me, then….

….air…moving air….is that wind? Is that God? Is that…..I’m not registering my body, so where is my body? The wind on my cheek….I’m running, but I don’t feel my legs…There they are! My keys, omg….there’s a man at my back….

I swiped my hand down as I was running to scoop up my keys, but between not registering my body and the weird shifts in my perception of where I am….

I missed them. I missed my keys.

I think this was the real moment of pain for me because I blamed myself for that mistake, even though there was a man at my back and I’d been unable to move, and then I couldn’t control my movements. I don’t think I’ll ever release that one feeling from that night.

The wind on my cheek; the dread in my chest.

The next beat is my sandal on dead leaves and dirt. Then I notice my shoe is gone as I slide. Today, my brain still alters some lines from the songs, like: straight into the chain fence, my love…..And when I looked down, my entire right foot had gone into and under the chain link fence, which was pierced into my foot and bleeding.

And he caught up with me. Before I could escape, he grabbed hold of my arm and began jerking it upward and it was very painful, but it was creating this effect where my foot was practically impaled and I’m unable to get up, but he’s pulling my arm at the same time.

OHHH, BITCH GET UP. GET THE FUCK UP, BITCH.

I finally shouted, I CAN’T, CHRIS. I CAN’T GET UP…STOP IT….and I’m fairly certain I was screaming.

YES YOU CAN, GET THE FUCK UP.

I’ll never forget this part as long as I’m alive. I went cold, reached down, grabbed hold of my foot….

…..and tore it out of the fence myself. I ripped my foot out of the chainlink fence—bloody as hell, shoeless—and somehow managed to find my footing. I bounced up, grabbed my keys, turned, and took off running full speed toward my clunky old Skyhawk Buick.

The wind on my cheek….not a breeze, it’s my movement….I am moving, not the air…

I opened that door, but the AC was broken and the window was still down, so the moment I started my car to get out of there, he caught up to my window, and threw it right into my face, likely to block my ability to drive, but god DAMN that hurt.

And I drove off into the night to go back to my friend’s house. Why? Because this would have been a case of an entire police force out for doing this to a white, pretty detective’s daughter who was just irrefutably a victim.

That’s what happened the night I ate dirt, and you can’t be the same person after that. You can’t be, because you’ve experienced this bizarre feeling of being nailed down, looking up for God despite not believing he exists, your body feels broken when someone slams you around like that, and, guys..

He didn’t rape me, but I thought he was going to. I believed that was his plan, but only for a split second, and I don’t remember where in that soup of time I thought that—and you know what? It might have been his intention. My body propelling itself forward with just that feeling of moving without consciously choosing to move might have saved me from that, but I also know he had this inconsistent principle of 100% not doing that to a woman.

Like, this is the guy that blasted Bad Brain’s “Sacred Love” like it was some kind of directive for me as his property after that.

Because yeah. I went back. I didn’t know what else to do. But it wasn’t that long because, once my mother died in 1997, I was able to focus on my goals and I left that man sobbing in his tiny bathroom of the apartment we lived in, just trying to sob hard enough to manipulate me to stop packing my shit.

But nope, I didn’t.

Fuck you, Chris. Fuck you. Look at this entire life of life music you can never take, but you know what else I’m gonna do? I’m bouta talk shit about what came after. But you’re still here, aren’t you? Always lurking. But you gained nothing from what I lost.

You fucking bitch.

1. Look, I know it’s not a clean comparison between my family’s religion and the Catholic lean in the song, but again, my brain is never gonna shut off its work because it’s not a 100% match.

2. There’s a long story here, just not here.

3. Their lyrics are “face down in the river, my love”

4. According to the “Creatures From Elsewhere” video, she was talking about sleep. There’s the whole performance right there! I love these folks.

5. You can Google my family. We are rough-and-tumble descendants of Appalachian origin.