ONEOFTHECROWD

LOVEYOURSELF (Alternate Version)

ENOUGH (Alternate Version)

NOAPOLOGIES (Alternate Version)

LEWSER! (Bonus Track)

Heels Higher than Your Ego

Everything's Okay!

It's All Over!

Cabaret Apocalypse

Give Me a Minute

Her! (Prelude)

By this point in the night, loves…
I was tired.

Not physically —
emotionally.

You try walking through a burning city
while every man you meet
is auditioning for the role of
God’s Smartest Boy.

So when I wandered into the museum
— or what was left of it —
I already felt my soul sit down
and ask for a minute.


It was quiet inside.
Too quiet.

Glass cases shattered,
bones scattered across the floor
like someone had dropped
the universe’s IKEA kit
and couldn’t be bothered
to find the instructions.

And there,
amid all the fossils and dust,
was a man with a clipboard.

A clipboard.
In the apocalypse.
I nearly evaporated.


He didn’t look up.
Didn’t say hello.
Just tapped a bone
with the end of his pen
and murmured:

“We can only trust
what we can verify.”

Darling.
DARLING.
I almost threw a dinosaur at him.


I said,
“Do you always talk like that?”
And he said,
“I rely on evidence.”

At this point,
I was so tired
I could’ve cried.

I mean, truly:
If one more man told me
the universe was only real
when he could measure it,
I’d start knocking over microscopes out of spite.


Life isn’t a lab report —
it’s a bruise.
It’s heat.
It’s wanting something
you can’t quantify.

Reality doesn’t ask
to be proved —
it hits you.
It holds you.
It moves you.
It breaks you.

And the truth?
The truth doesn’t shrink
just because your clipboard
can’t find a box for it.


He started listing facts —
facts, loves.

As if reciting the periodic table
was going to fix the ceiling.

He pointed at bones
and said they were “evidence of the past.”
I pointed at my chest
and said,
“So is trauma, sweetheart,
but good luck getting a grant to quantify that.”

He didn’t laugh.
Obviously.


He said he only believed
what he could observe.

And I said,
(for the love of the gods, internally) —
“If you can’t observe meaning,
maybe stop looking
in museum exhibits
and try a human heart.”

But no.
He was committed.
Committed in a way
that made me want to lie down
and let the museum collapse on us both
just for the silence.


I don’t hate proof.
I hate how scared people get
when something can’t be pinned down.

I hate how loudly they insist
that only the measurable
is real
because anything else
might touch them.

I hate how small the world becomes
when you refuse to feel it.


Life isn’t a specimen —
it’s a storm.
Meaning isn’t a data point —
it’s a pulse.
And certainty?
Certainty is a cage
we build for ourselves
so we don’t have to wrestle
with wonder.

The world is bigger
than your evidence.
And you’re smaller
than you think.


So I left him there,
counting dust
and cataloguing bones
while the city burned.

Honestly,
after the Idealist floating off into nowhere,
meeting a man who needed
citations for existence
felt like a hate crime.

Next exhibit, loves.
Next worldview.
Next migraine.

The Empiricist

Ambulo sine luce mundum,
nec tamen timeo tenebras.
Umbra facta est mihi nota,
quietus locus ad respirandum.

Attollo tamen oculos ad caelum,
et nescio quid in corde dolet.
Vox respondeat silentio meo,
flamma stans contra vacuum.


Si nullus deus me tenet,
hoc inane sit benignum.
Quiescat sensus sub digitis,
veritas hic sit mitis.


Et quamvis stans non frangar,
alitur desiderium quod non extinguo:
coram deo digno amari,
fidem habere in re vera.

Lacuna Dei

I left the bench
thinking I’d earned myself
a moment of peace.

A moment.
One.

But the universe heard that
and said,
“Oh sweet girl, absolutely not.”

Because the very next street
pulsed.

The air vibrated.
Bass rolled out of a broken doorway
like smoke.
The kind of sound
that grabs your heartbeat
and rewrites it.

A nightclub.
Or half of one.
The roof was gone
but the music survived.

Of course.


And there he was.
Center of the room.
Shirt unbuttoned,
eyes blazing
like he’d swallowed
the last good night of the world
and kept it burning.

He looked at me,
grinned,
and raised a glass.

“Finally,” he said.
“Someone worth drinking with.”

And suddenly I remembered
what it felt like
to be twenty minutes from disaster
and calling it a lifestyle.


You have to understand, loves —
I used to live in places like this.

Low lights,
loud music,
no tomorrow.
No need for one.

Back then,
pleasure was prayer
and recklessness
was salvation.
I treated my own body
like confetti.
And my heart?
Cracked it open
like a glow stick.
Shook it till it shined.

Seeing him felt…
familiar.
Too familiar.

Like someone had uncorked
a past life
I wasn’t done grieving.


He leaned in close,
smelling like smoke
and expensive denial.

Said,
“Forget the world.
Forget meaning.
Just feel.”

And gods help me,
for a moment
I almost did.

Almost.


Feeling isn’t freedom
when it owns you.
Chaos isn’t living
when it replaces breath.

Pleasure’s a lovely thing
until it cages you
in neon bars
and calls it joy.

And darling,
you can drown in ecstasy
just as easily
as fear.

I’ve done both.


He took my hand —
warm, insistent,
the way memories are
when they pretend to be choices.

Pulled me toward the dance floor,
toward the heat,
toward the noise,
toward the girl I used to be
and barely survived.

“You’re still one of us,”
he whispered.
“I can see it.”

And I hated
how true it felt.


But then —
somewhere between the broken strobe lights
and the part of the song
meant to tear your pulse out —
I caught my reflection
in a cracked mirror.

The girl I saw
wasn’t the girl from the cabaret.
She wasn’t the one
who mistook destruction
for glamour.

She was older.
Sharper.
Softer in places
that used to be armored.

And for the first time tonight,
I remembered
why I left this life behind.


Pleasure was never the problem.
It was the way I used it
to silence the quieter parts of myself.
The soft parts.
The frightened parts.
The parts that wanted
something gentler
than intoxication.

He looked at me like a promise.
I looked at him like a warning.


Feel everything —
but don’t let it swallow you.
Dance —
but know why your feet move.

Want deeply —
but don’t let wanting
become the whole story.

Pleasure is gorgeous,
but meaning is the thing
you wake up with
when the music stops.

And darling —
it always stops.


He asked if I was staying.
I said nothing.
I didn’t need to.

I walked out of that half-dead club
and left him shimmering
in the ruins
of the life I used to worship.

The Hedonist

Well…
that was dramatic.

I’m still on the floor,
same pose as last night,
dress scorched,
mascara melted,
and not a single regret in sight.

The ceiling’s open now —
the sky’s leaking ash,
and my pulse is steady,
which is more than I can say
for the décor.

I should’ve died by vanity,
should’ve drowned in my own glitter,
should’ve burned with the building—
but honestly?
I’ve had worse Mondays.

Ah, yes.
The leaflet of doom.
“WORLD ENDS TONIGHT!”
Bless them.
They printed so many.
Shame nobody bothered to read the fine print.

False alarm, darlings.
Armageddon closes early
due to lack of enthusiasm.

I push myself upright,
brush ash from my stockings,
straighten my hair
with the dignity of a queen
reassembling her crown.

Behind me, the flames sigh—
and right as I step through the doorway—

The whole building collapses
in a perfect, theatrical curtain fall.
Honestly?
If I’d planned it,
it wouldn’t have timed that well.

Outside, the city is chaos:
people screaming,
sirens crying,
windows smashed,
the sky the colour of cheap champagne left out in the rain.

And every face says the same thing:
“The world is ending!”
Sweethearts, please—
you’ve been saying that since Tuesday.

They run, they panic, they pray,
as if terror ever changed a single outcome.
And me?
I just laugh.
Because I’ve seen the truth:
the world only ends
for the ones who can’t stand
not being in control.

I grin at the ruins,
the smoke,
the beautifully honest disorder.

A city finally showing its bones.

If they’d seen the flyer that landed on me,
maybe they’d have stayed calm.
But then again—
some people need the drama
to feel alive.

So…
the universe wants to break again.
Let it.
I’m still here.
I’m not done.
And after everything,
everything…

Right.
What’s next?

Next? - Prologue

Oh, darlings…
you are not going to believe who I met on a rooftop tonight.
No, really — gather round, heels off, drinks up.
This one's a masterpiece.


So picture this:
me, strutting through a burning skyline,
and there he is —
Mr. Stone-Cold-Stillness himself —
sitting cross-legged on the edge of the roof
like the world exploding downstairs
was just background noise.

He didn’t even blink.
I swear, a meteor could’ve hit him
and he would've called it
“an opportunity for inner growth.”

He starts talking —
oh, the confidence, the calm —
about storms, and detachment,
and “mastering impulse,”
as if the apocalypse
was just a bad hair day
you can’t let get to you.

And I thought:
Sweetheart,
if you were any more serene,
you’d be a commemorative statue.

He called emotion a weakness —
I called it Tuesday.
He preached stillness —
I heard fear
trying on a dignified tone.

Because listen, loves:
you don’t rise above the feeling,
you walk through it.
You don’t tame the fire —
you burn with it.
Strength isn’t quiet;
it’s honest.
And numbness?
That’s not wisdom, darling —
just fear
wearing pearls.

So he keeps going,
talking about reason and clarity
like he invented them,
and how passion is chaos,
and emotion is noise.

Meanwhile I’m thinking:
if denial had legs and a skincare routine,
it would look exactly like him.

And I said —
(in my head, but loudly) —
“Honey, if discipline made you whole,
you wouldn’t be up on a rooftop
alone
trying to convince the sky
you’re not terrified.”

Control is adorable,
but it’s not the same as living.

So hear me when I say it:
you don’t rise above the feeling —
you grow through it.
You don’t silence the thunder —
you dance in it.
Strength isn’t distance;
it’s depth.

And the soul?
Oh, the soul blooms loud,
messy,
and gloriously uncontained.


Anyway…
he stayed up there,
staring at nothing,
chasing serenity.
Good for him.

Me?
I blew him a kiss,
walked back down the fire escape,
and let the city keep burning.

The Stoic

You know, after Mr. Perfect-Posture on the rooftop,
I thought I’d bought myself
at least ten minutes
without another philosopher crawling out of the rubble.

But no.

Not my luck.
Not my city.
Not my night.

Because the very next street?
You won’t believe who I found.


No fire.
No screaming.
Just a narrow, dripping alley
lit by a neon sign that said:
“NOTHING MATTERS.”

Not metaphorically,
not symbolically —
someone actually spent electricity
to illuminate the absence of meaning.

Romantic, really.
In a damp, mouldy sort of way.


And there he was.
Sitting under the sign
like a disciple
waiting to be baptised
in apathy.

He didn’t even look up
when I walked past.
Just whispered,
“Nothing matters,”
like it was a lullaby.

I swear
even the rats looked depressed.


It wasn’t dramatic.
It wasn’t loud.
It wasn’t even tragic.

Just…
the kind of energy
that makes you want to nap
out of spite.


But here’s the thing, loves:
If nothing matters,
you’re free.

If the world is empty,
you get to decorate it.

If the universe is indifferent,
it means you can stop begging
for permission
to exist.

Meaning isn’t delivered —
it’s invented.
Crafted.
Stitched together
out of scraps and stubbornness.

It’s the one thing
a void can’t provide
but also can’t prevent.


He finally looked at me.
Eyes like burnt-out stars.
And he said,
“I can’t find a point.”

And I just…
stood there.
Let it sink in.
Because that was the saddest thing he said all night.

Not “nothing matters.”
That’s easy.
Everybody says that eventually.

But “I can’t find a point”?
That’s a man
who hasn’t realised
you’re supposed to make one.


He wasn’t hopeless.
He was tired.
Tired of searching
for a meaning
he thought was buried somewhere
he hadn’t looked yet.

Meanwhile the universe
was just standing behind him going,
“It’s DIY, honey.”

He just never turned around.


So if the void calls your name,
answer politely
and walk the other way.

If nothing is certain,
everything is possible.

And if you feel small
under all that emptiness —
remember:
even a match
looks like a star
in the dark.

Anyway,
I left him there
with his neon prophecy
and his puddle of cosmic ennui.

Some people break loudly.
He just…
unravelled.
Peacefully.

Next street.
Next disaster.
Next philosopher.

Let’s keep walking.

The Nihilist

Alright…
just…
give me a moment.

I know, I know —
“keep walking, darling,”
“the night’s young,”
“more philosophers to meet.”

But my feet hurt.
And my brain hurts.
And my patience…
well, she left hours ago.

So I sat down.
On a park bench
that somehow survived
everything else falling apart.

Lucky thing.


It’s funny, loves…
sitting here,
watching the world smoulder
and listening to the leaves
try their best to pretend
nothing’s changed…

I remember being someone
who would’ve hidden from all this.

Quiet.
Small.
Careful.

Someone who crossed her legs
and her heart
in equal measure,
just to take up
a little less space.

Someone who learned
to laugh quietly
so no one asked
where the sound came from.

Someone who lived
like she didn’t deserve
to be loud.


I used to avoid the world.
Did you know that?
Back before the cabaret,
before the glitter
and the fire
and the taste of danger on my tongue…

I was the kind of girl
who thought life happened
to better people.

People who weren’t afraid
of being seen.
People who didn’t panic
when a single spotlight
looked their way.
People who didn’t
fold in half
at the idea of taking up
too much air.

I thought survival
meant disappearing politely.

I was wrong.


The night I stepped onstage
for the first time…
I swear,
I thought my own voice
was going to crack me open.

It didn’t.
Not all the way.
Not then.

But it made a start.

The cabaret didn’t save me.
It just set me on fire
in a way that made me realise
I’d been ash for years.


And now?
Now I’m sitting in a broken park,
with the city whispering
through burnt-out leaves,
and for the first time tonight…
I feel something soft.

Like a memory
trying to be kind.

Like the girl I was
before all this
is sitting beside me,
legs crossed
and hands folded,
asking if I’m alright.

I don’t know the answer.
But I like that she asked.


Alright.
Enough resting.
Enough ghosts.
Enough nostalgia.

The night isn’t over,
and I promised myself
I’d finish it.

Besides —
there’s music
coming from the next street.
Loud.
Chaotic.
Too bright.

Which means
one thing.

The Hedonist is waiting.

And I really, really
hope he’s drinking.

The Bench - Interlude

Well, here we are at last, my dears
One last bow before the curtain
I hope your heart has found the entry fee
Worthwhile, and you leave certain

You’ve stayed through fire, smoke, and songs
Through every laugh and petty sin 
And if you found a piece of you here
Then I’m glad you let me in

And every story has its end
No matter how we try to stay
So take my hand just one more time

We've laughed, we've cried, we've fought, we've prayed
But now has come the time to say

Goodbye, my city, goodnight
For so long, this felt so right
But now I've got to go
This is someone else's show

And it doesn't matter if you understood, everything or nothing 
That wasn't the point of it all
What matters is someone, somewhere, out there
For a moment, didn't feel small

Maybe this is the only song
Of mine you’ve ever listened to
And if my story starts and ends right here
Well… that’s alright with me, and you

I never sang for legacy
Or tried to carve my name in stone
I just hoped that in the briefest breath
You’d feel a little less alone

Goodbye, my city, goodnight 
For so long, this felt so right 
But now I've got to go 
This is someone else's show 

And it doesn't matter if you understood, everything or nothing 
That wasn't the point of it all.
What matters is someone, somewhere, out there 
For a moment, didn't feel small


Thank you for listening
For staying this long
That’s all I ever wanted
Just someone
To hear
My song

I’ll go now
Sleep well
Goodnight

N.A.H

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