An Beal Bocht Cafe, which translates to “The Poor Mouth Cafe,” hosts an open mic ten minutes from where I’m staying in Yonkers. I head over as I feel the pressures of adulthood in my chest. It’s almost as if I find a big, scary corporate monster at every corner urging me to put my dreams aside for a stable salary and benefits. Talk about a Poor Mouth.

Tuesday nights draw the Riverdale community to An Beal Bocht, turning the cozy cafe into a bustling music venue. I walk in and overhear someone venting about their landlord, and another about an unexpected pregnancy. I get a beer knowing I don’t want it.

I stopped performing in an effort to build a fan base in a way that aligned with today’s industry. People don’t go to music venues to discover music anymore. It’s too convenient to look to social media as a means of discovery, so I thought I’d play into that by putting up a free-standing door in an array of cities. Turns out the only thing that did was drown my psyche in numbers and the impossible task of solving an algorithm that was built to be unsolvable.

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