“The meanest dog you’ll ever meet
He ain’t the hound dog in the street
He bares some teeth and tears some skin
But, brother, that’s the worst of him
The dog you really got to dread
Is the one that howls inside your head
It’s him whose howling drives men mad
And a mind to its undoing” – Anaïs Mitchell

A cold room, a lone soul, a lost cause

And yet the silence screeches in their ears

The pounding of their tired heart echos the dreadful reminder

They are alive

They are not sure they want to be

As doubt seeps

What makes their lives worthy of a statement?

Of a movement?

Nobody is listening because nobody cares

Death is not the thing it used to be

People have died before

Some names are sung, faces memorialized across buildings and cities, their stories shared, their families consoled

Millions left us too soon, untraced and unknown

Ungrieved.

You could be next, or you could be the last

Which is worse?

A dog howls in a cold room

He’s a lone soul, a lost cause

His bark is worse than his bite

But the bark is enough to be a mans undoing

Cover art for the concept album, Hadestown, written by Anaïs Mitchell.