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Rising Action Potential is a six-part narrative drama set in an unyielding environment that demands compliance and silence. Stranded within this pressure, Andrew launches a high-stakes quest to turn pain into power, memory into method, and collective truth into a blueprint for resilience and resistance. This immersive audio experience drives the story forward through dense, twenty-five-minute episodes—weaving an unflinching spoken narrative together with an original hip-hop soundtrack that acts as the heartbeat of the entire journey.
[INTRODUCTION]
Rising Action Potential Episode 2: Homeostatic Regulation
I was thrust into responsibility at 19.
Being responsible for another life gave me purpose.
For years the only question on my mind was:
What’s next?
All I knew was:
Get it done. Make it happen.
What’s next?
That question forced me to take action
and helped me to realize my potential.
But over time, the configuration changed.
As my son grew into his independence,
“what’s next” became his question instead of mine.
That's when everything began to reset.
In this voltage drop of repolarization,
my identity and purpose dissipated.
And that’s where the crisis began.
________________________________________
[IDENTITY CRISIS]
Sometimes I feel like I don't even know myself.
Gave my all to everyone else and I lost myself.
Now I'm by myself looking in the eyes of a
reflection that I don't recognize. Identity crisis.
I've been trauma suppressing ever since my conception.
Survival mechanism of deception.
Leaning toward betterment.
Better than I'd ever been, but when the distractions end I can't pretend.
That's why I've been. Here.
Beside myself trying to get inside myself.
I've been fighting and writing, trying to define myself.
Trying to find myself, a little slice of happy.
Not knowing where it's gone.
I'm all alone and I can't find it.
Spent the last 18 dedicated to others.
Focused in on hopefulness with despair in my heart.
Couldn't let it tear me apart so I tucked it in.
Buried underneath the pressure of progression, until it wasn’t.
Eruption. Identity crushed in the rubble.
My purpose is no longer: provide and protect others.
I’m uncertain where my worth is if not tied to externalness.
My own discernment of purpose is all I am concerned with.
And it can’t be provided by outside eyes
Cause those I know really don't know me and never tried.
They have their own struggles come to me with their troubles
seeking relief without thinking about me or my situation.
They assume that I'm invincible because I've always had to be.
But in reality my life's a tragedy.
I never realized my level of co-dependence until it ended.
Now that everyone is gone, what did I end up with? Nothing.
Now it's just me and my thoughts again.
I refuse to get lost within.
So the decision is get back to the basics.
Thankfulness and appreciation.
Time to erase mistakes and replace them with something gracious.
Time to accept my fate? Nope.
It's time to elevate my station
It's time to reclaim my brain and reframe my situations.
Its time to make some changes, internal for external manifestation.
Since the age of 19 I've been fighting and trying
for everyone except for me.
I never worried what was best for me, especially.
My destiny uncertain.
Recalibration of my nervous system.
Internal words of wisdom surfacing,
no longer drowned out by the noise.
Emergence. I heard it. The words of purpose.
Focus in on noticing.
The voice I'm seeking seems broke into pieces.
I believe silence is needed to identify its meaning.
So, no more distractions.
I’m tapping in with my mind again.
This time I'm seeking understanding not a bandage or banishment
of my prior underhandedness,
but understanding of why it existed in the first place.
Only then can I reconcile with my reckless wildness.
And the pain that I sustained along the way
when I was just a child trying to survive inside of my vices.
Now I'm grown and confused.
This is my life in identity crisis.
Sometimes I feel like I don't even know myself.
Gave my all to everyone else and I lost myself.
Now I'm by myself looking in the eyes of a
reflection that I don't recognize. Identity crisis.
Sometimes I feel like I don't even know myself.
Gave my all to everyone else and I lost myself.
Now I'm by myself looking in the eyes of a
reflection that I don't recognize. Identity crisis.
________________________________________
As I stood in front of the mirror,
I was faced with questions
I had never been forced to consider.
Who am I when I’m by myself?
What’s next when it’s just me?
I had been moving and doing for so long
that the stillness felt unnatural.
I began to see that the constant motion
had been doubling as distance.
Distance from things I hadn’t fully faced.
Now that distance was gone.
And I decided to embrace it,
instead of replace it.
________________________________________
[QUIET CONTEMPLATION]
Relax and breathe.
There’s room for evolution when there's new things to think.
New things to dream bring changes.
That's why I remain in quiet contemplation.
It seems like everybody looks to me for sage advice.
But if I'm everybody else's sage, then who is mine?
I find introspection and reflection helps me find
direction at the intersections of life.
I'm looking for connections.
Sometimes I wish I had more folks to lean on.
Voices in my head telling me I need to be strong.
I've been known to be wrong, do wrong.
Ruminate on past mistakes,
learn from the lessons they contained and then be on my way.
The process may span days to decades.
It's truly never over, that's all part of growing.
Hoping I can stay moving while I'm going through it.
Testing my beliefs and new ideas as I do it.
Prove it to myself before I share it with the masses.
Before I try to capture it inside these passages,
I will just sit. Spend a few hours inside my head.
That's how I know I'm bout to level up again.
Relax and breathe.
There’s room for evolution when there's new things to think.
New things to dream bring changes.
That's why I remain in quiet contemplation.
Breathe. Breathe.
Sometimes I find myself in a state
somewhere in between awake and slumber.
As my breath slows and my eyes close,
I wonder if I'm thinking or dreaming?
Imagining or seeing?
As I quiet my mind the silence amplifies.
Whispers within the shadows.
My intention is to listen.
They begin to drift in.
Or, maybe I do.
Falling toward their callings.
My senses connected to their presence.
A reckoning that's been beckoning me.
Ever present yet never presented.
Lost beneath thoughts.
Suppressed.
________________________________________
[SUPPRESSED SECRETS]
Suppressed secrets held deep inside.
Suppressed secrets I know where they reside.
As I peek in the boundaries of our mind,
tip toeing, wondering what we’re going to find.
Suppressed secrets held deep inside.
Don't want ‘em leaking.
I know where they reside.
As I peek in the boundaries of my mind
tiptoeing, wondering what we’re going to find.
Careful as we move through my brain's secret passages.
Don't want to unlock suppressed tragedies.
So we tread lightly. Stay within the light.
We don't want to get lost in the darkness confindings.
Don't want to be reminding ourselves of the times we were damaged
by other people’s actions.
Impact that we can't imagine.
In fact, there's warnings on the wall which we placed
to protect ourselves from this moment,
just in case we ever traveled back to this place.
Nightmare's embrace is awaiting.
If we break the protective casing there may be no way to replace it.
Curiosity.
Lost in the maze where luminosity
is attracting our eyes to places we don't want to be.
Part of me wanna see the other part wanna leave.
So which one will it be? Undecided.
I don't know if I really don't want to know what I've been hiding.
Suppressed secrets held deep inside.
Suppressed secrets I know where they reside.
As I peek in the boundaries of our mind,
tip toeing, wondering what we’re going to find.
Suppressed secrets held deep inside.
Don't want ‘em leaking.
I know where they reside.
As I peek in the boundaries of my mind
tiptoeing, wondering what we’re going to find.
Curiosity and fear control my every move,
pulling me in different directions.
What should I do?
We should turn back walk away from these passages.
You don't want to remember the things that I kept from us.
We should keep going, there's more to explore.
Open up the door.
These choices I can't ignore.
Wondering if I could control the flood of emotion
contained behind these barricades if I let it flow into my psyche.
It might provide relief from the anxiety,
ignited by these mysteries inside of me.
What if I set them free?
Finally see what is hidden?
A view of the forbidden?
It may cause a mental break.
If I get entangled in their chains, will I be forever changed?
Will I be able to escape?
There's only one way to find out.
I know I'm stronger now.
Maybe it's finally time to to lay eyes on my
Suppressed secrets held deep inside.
Suppressed secrets I know where they reside.
As I peek in the boundaries of our mind,
tip toeing, wondering what we’re going to find.
Suppressed secrets held deep inside.
Don't want ‘em leaking.
I know where they reside.
As I peek in the boundaries of my mind
tiptoeing, wondering what we’re going to find.
I chose to proceed with caution.
Unlocked it, walked in.
Discovered a room filled with boxes.
How can I unpack these memories without having to
re-live the emotions they contain?
You can't.
But wait, on the other hand we're not a child anymore.
And I do I know how to control my emotions.
So I decide to pop a box top and see what happens.
Instantly, images and feelings come flooding in.
Overwhelming sensations.
Rejection. Insecurity.
Alienation. Worry.
Vulnerability. Uncertainty.
Hospitalizations.
Fear. Disgust. Hatred.
Beatings and bleeding.
Infuriation. Hysteria.
Now I'm just staring into the eyes of the little boy,
and young man who I once was.
One afraid, one enraged.
Both shunned.
No more.
We embrace. They feel safe.
I awake, as they dissolve knowing they’re they’re no longer
Suppressed secrets held deep inside.
________________________________________
Quiet reflection pulled me deeper than expected.
And when I opened my eyes, everything shifted.
For the first time, I accepted myself. All of me.
I realized that my younger selves
did the best they could with what they had.
So they are to be honored, not buried.
They were dysregulated,
frayed wires without insulation,
reactive to signals they had no control over.
We are not. We fixed the wiring.
We no longer have to be reactive.
We can choose how we move.
But those wires still require insulation for protection.
The people we surround ourselves with, they are that insulation.
Faulty insulation can lead to shocks, to short circuiting.
And the first step to protecting the wires, is to cut it off.
________________________________________
[FORGIVENESS]
Andrew:
Forgiveness doesn't come easy for me.
It hurts when they use words for the purpose of causing sting,
cause I know I didn't do anything to deserve it.
All I do is help ‘em circumvent their struggles, solve their puzzles.
Never once have I said or done anything to intentionally cause harm.
I know sometimes I take it too far when I'm playing.
If they're offended, I clarify my intentions and I make amends.
So we can mend and start again.
I ain’t perfect but I don't hurt people on purpose.
Those who know me know my only goal is sharing love and hope.
So when someone comes unmuzzled and
starts talking to me slick my brain clicks.
Nothing they can do to fix it, cause I flip a switch
and disconnect when I'm met with that disrespect.
All that’s left is this cloud of disgust surrounding us.
There's a very small window to fix it.
Better let it vent, cause the longer it sits, the thicker it gets,
the harder it is for me to forgive.
So if you blatantly lay into me with hate and negativity
you better be ready because there is no reconnecting with me.
No more beckoning me when your life collapses unexpectedly.
No more messaging me or calling when you're falling into emptiness
if you’re choosing to maneuver against me.
After everything that I've done for you?
I”ma say it's cool then.
The only things I have left for you is deuces.
Velly Marsh:
Take my forgiveness but there’s a limit on how much I let them hold.
Fam, Uncle Sam, or a friend.
It gets to a point of insanity.
Nothing changes after having conversations candidly.
Again, and again, and again.
Take my forgiveness but there’s a limit on how much I let them hold.
Fam, Uncle Sam, or a friend.
It gets to a point of insanity.
Nothing changes after having conversations candidly.
Again, and again, and again.
People want specifics why I’m livid in my existence.
I ain’t writing my name on the bullet for ammunition.
Long story short, kindness turned into weakness.
They think I’m blinded, but don’t know the meaning of what I’m seeing.
The pressure within my skull cause panic attacks.
I’m breathing but cannot relax.
I given so much I think I’m outta whack.
Plus I went through something that made me homeless.
I’ll paint a perfect picture of my motives.
Of rapping like the rents due.
Forget my sob story and a tissue.
Because if I continue to worry, I’ll be stuck within an igloo.
I got my own struggles to attend to.
Assumptions lead to issues.
Life’s complexities, I made them simple
I’m like a bull in the field that’s unbothered.
Don’t want to be disturbed.
My territory is uncharted.
Normally alone so I can show softness to my hardships.
They’ll make an excuse to bring their red flags regardless.
Rough along the edges but I’m honest.
Not a criminal or an accomplice.
But I’m still a villain in someone’s conscious.
Can’t please everyone, you can only be yourself.
Can’t control anyone but you.
Don’t let them breach on your shell.
Thrown in secret competitions without my knowledge like every day.
They want to be better than me.
I compete with me from yesterday.
That’s how I leveled up.
Inside my greatness, nothing evil.
I’ll blame myself just to dodge an ego.
Take my forgiveness but there’s a limit on how much I let them hold.
Fam, Uncle Sam, or a friend.
It gets to a point of insanity.
Nothing changes after having conversations candidly.
Again, and again, and again.
Take my forgiveness but there’s a limit on how much I let them hold.
Fam, Uncle Sam, or a friend.
It gets to a point of insanity.
Nothing changes after having conversations candidly.
Again, and again, and again.
________________________________________
Stripping away the faulty insulation was necessary.
But the wires can't be left exposed.
That's why we have to align ourselves with the right people.
Velly, I appreciate your words, man,
Your being here is proof that the right insulation stabilizes.
It sustains instead of drains.
And that's what this is. Alignment.
We are all each other's insulation.
Recalibration is establishing a new baseline
that represents who we are today.
And it comes with perspective.
Like that question, what's next?
It resulted in years of maximum effort.
Racing toward a specific destination.
So the voltage drop, it wasn't the result of failure.
It was the inevitable result of success.
Of crossing a finish line and collapsing.
That's what happens when purpose is attached to a destination.
But here, where the internal wires are repaired and properly insulated?
This is the new baseline. Our baseline.
Where purpose is rooted in progress, instead of a destination.
So what's next? We're living it.
________________________________________
[NOTHING CAN CONQUER ME]
My impression of life lessons?
They're all blessings.
Perseverance built through stressful situations.
Humble accommodations, air mattresses inflated.
But of course, it’s not an issue cause I've been through worse.
I've been through the dirt and the rain.
Hiking threw muddy waters built strength in my legs.
Now I can stand.
Once believed to be damned.
Food insecurity: famine.
Helped mold me to the man that I am
Pestilence once affected my thinking
Poisonous thoughts.
Confused. Lost. Mind altered.
Stunting my growth.
Red horse had me fighting myself: civil war.
Uncivil how I treated myself.
What I endured was torture.
Enhanced interrogation tactics.
But the fact is, all that did was teach me the truth
of who Andrew is.
Path of self discovery,
Avoided the fourth horse every time it'd come for me.
Ideation of suicide set aside.
Who decides the outcome of my life?
He is I.
And I am still alive.
Survived the worst of life,
Found the light I had dimmed inside.
It shines bright.
Now nothing can conquer me.
Contoured by conjuring
strength from my well of past suffering.
Discovering that nothing can conquer me.
Contoured by conjuring
strength from my well of past suffering.
Now nothing can conquer me.
Haunt me if you want ghosts of past.
Insiders to the mind of a man whose past suffered.
Thank you for the reminder of the strains and pains I overcame.
It provides motivation and focus.
Most importantly, notice that hope is never lost.
The cost of dues paid outweighed by strength gained.
Gratitude for the compensation.
I ain't mad at you,
I'm thankful for the tribulations.
Their education provided me wisdom,
taught me patience, calmed my anxiousness.
All of which are advantageous.
So thanks I give.
When you've been through the worst that life has to offer
you cease to be afraid of it.
No longer run I turn in face it.
Open arms embrace it.
Take it on let it build me.
Coping skills no longer basic.
I will be victorious in all things that truly matter.
Felonious? Nope. No more. Advanced past it.
Tragedy will always find the path I keep, I understand.
Keep my family close.
Deep breathe through headphones,
Find ways to relax rethink and reach out.
Practice advanced tactics.
Feel free to speak out.
Don’t cosign bullshit.
Loyal to a fault.
Fault line defined by my integrity.
I'll never be anything better than the best I'll ever be.
Regrettably - wait - I have no regrets.
Everything I've done, every choice that I've made,
all that I've been through, has led me to this place.
No disdain.
Now nothing can conquer me.
Contoured by conjuring
strength from my well of past suffering.
Discovering that nothing can conquer me.
Contoured by conjuring
strength from my well of past suffering.
Now nothing can conquer me.
Honestly, I find comfort in my honesty.
It lightens my burden.
Once was bursting with uncertainty.
Certainly, my curtains been called, my cards been pulled,
my cars been towed more times than I can count.
My banks been rolled, accounts been closed.
Freedom withheld, rights revoked.
Twice divorced.
Constant state of poverty.
Faced off with policeman.
Internal demons hypocritically speaking,
trying to keep me in a weakened state.
Faced with more than I could take.
Sanity breaks, hospitalization intakes.
Inhospitable snakes, yet lived through their inflictions.
Mental imprisonment, victim of false narratives.
Who will I be? Unknown.
Teen parenting apparently prepared me
for what I never could have known.
I never could have grown if not planted in the dirt.
Rain water kept me hydrated,
quenching my thirst for excitement, adventure.
The shit I got myself into fertilized my roots.
That's truth.
Who knew it was all for my betterment?
Nothing is irrelevant.
I've never been better than who I am today because of it.
Now nothing can conquer me.
Contoured by conjuring
strength from my well of past suffering.
Discovering that nothing can conquer me.
Contoured by conjuring
strength from my well of past suffering.
Now nothing can conquer me.
END EPISODE