Sleep through it. I am alone. I am anchored down and bottom trawling straight through thousand year coral formation and the escape is limited from this depth, this depth is not comforting. My most recent artistic endeavor is one of black light wrist stamps and facial hair growth - good to be anonymous when the "supergroup" idea is mentioned. Though all the graybeards and little muffin top church women glared at me with condescending recognition. (I live here now. U-District. Not Portland anymore. Who knows who I am? Do any of you? Parents? Girlfriend?) I ditched the ensemble to confuse directions and get verbally lost within myself, too loud of brain to communicate or articulate clearly the waves of cerebral emotions I felt.
They played nearly the same set as when I was more intimate. I gave myself to the physical performance over the technicalities of instrumentation. (Too many people to keep up with. I folded within myself because I felt eyes on me from all directions and wished to scream it out into a forgiveness never possible.)
Pointing and waving from stage. The worried mother in the back row. The ex-girlfriend. The current girlfriend. The masked mistake and the terrible presentation. All of it masked, it was a masquerade and a high school reunion, how do you like it? English huh? Writing? Does it make sense to do do you condescend yourself enough what about your own music the math and the technicality do you know how to play drums or is it a rumor and the short unnecessary responses for how I respond to this or that or this stimulus who knows with me running up to it with my trio of terror and the weight on my from guilt and weird inexperience, who do I tell? Who cares? Is it all a huge mistake?
When we make eye contact and I act drunk. Does that tell enough. Do we meet on solid ground. I was overwhelmed. High school reunion and an inability to be better or nicer or warmer and a horrible desire to run and run and hide and burrow. This is me. This is my fractional burrowing cowardice and I am a scared boy living in a mansion of a body amidst friends who aren't friends and musicians who don't care and drugs that don't work. but pills? but pills? I hear her snoring. I felt nauseous when she did in the car when the stereo stopped because the hearing is failing and the communication is at an all time worse and the story stayed consistent and the dancing and the singing and the self is lost and a huge grey area does it make sense at all... When can I reconcile with death? With the passing cloud existence of a hug for mother and a handshake for father a church going card drawing playlist for ... fuck's sake.
he bled and I barely danced. I went up front for frozen in time and sang along. a few people raised their flabby arms with palms upturned in a shoulder shrug kind of indolence and I did not care. they did not know my relation to this band and the turn out was decent and noble and kind. the bar was closed early and the staff was mean as hell and I remember Erica left in the venue for many hours with nothing to do other than sit and talk with us when we weren't busy pretending like our equipment was an issue that took 4 hours to resolve and the venue becomes a cave and then the walls collapse and it becomes the only place on earth and my despondence was long from the get go when I couldn't decide the restaurant. I couldn't keep a secret. I couldn't see my name on the cd label. Mike informed me that my thanks was involved. "You were as much a part of this as I was." he said. We have some making up to do, I think. I don't know. I could have gone down with my parents and walked through the woods to go hang out with them but they probably would have slept and smoked and the vegan roast and the weekends of familial hang outs and my issues are terribly tragic in isolated incidents though always meaningless in retrospect.
I fell in love a million and fifty times. With counterfeit notes and bills tenfold. Words cannot express my discordance with myself on this night. Nothing satisfies that curious exploratory voice. Nothing can clarify.. "I laughed so hard inside myself, it all began to hurt."
Angel Olsen. American flag draping. "I didn't like it as a table cloth." Wanted to ask what the hell for but bit my tongue because it is a generation gap that cannot be leaped sometimes even despite how close and friendly we can get. I was nasty and spoiled and oily. Leaky. Slimy. Bird's nest string light bulbs all wound up. Now I will drink cheap beer and wonder what happened to myself. The video audio classes in production rooms that are 5 years outdated now and the pool recreation and the high fives and the voices remembered better than our own abilities and the ingenious idea to play falling down with capo on first fret. and I feel I've missed riding the wave of the most pop band I'd ever be in and the metal licks and the constant screeching variable turntable warmth when the others, the others, the sexual relations, the musical sexual relations. the same emotional involvement for me. We had sex - all of us. Our memories fucked without roses or wine. It was a purely physical connection. Nothing else.
"Don't blame me..." she said. For everything, I guess.
"For what?" I ask.
"You know... hanging out with your friends."
"It can't be that easy. There are people you wouldn't want me with.. combined with people I wouldn't want me with. The old faces and the horrible enlightened exaggerated smiles- oh god tone it down!"
"...."
"Well they went up and you went out to smoke some sort of cigarette with some hood rats and I swooped down and took you out of there like the hands of an angel... """He's an angel.""" I'm the devil, I reply. I am sin and hate and judgement and nothing matters unless you are self aware and then you can die for it and realize the futility."
"But Oscar Wilde... Scare Tactics... Hasn't this been done before?"
"As much as fucking Hendrix. The seattle testimony and the anxiety regarding it all. the tokes and the cars and the crash and the stars and the glasses and the lamps, the booze, the clues the dead end end end end. why did I follow you fuckers back here just to be alone?"
"you stormed off."
"Why didn't I stand my own ground and enjoy a talkative night with them all. A presence to catch a ride and a weird stance taken my the mother, the child bearer, the astrology class, the insanity, the persecution... thinking of all of that now, this will end poorly."
"Why must you be so negative? Why blame me for your own problems?"
"I blamed you briefly because I know that if I hung out with her you would not have been happy. This is a dumb fear I now understand because no matter what you would have been passed out though I did spare my parents and you the embarrassment of waking you up from coma in the morning and the monday rolls on the sasquatch rolls on and the fear is benevolent and all knowing. our scars are tuned to a tight, tight pitch... our bitch problems so loud and grating that no one could withstand without fucking vomiting."
"no need to curse."
"fuck you, thank you."
"you are a god damn train wreck."
"you have no self worth."
"good fucking riddance."
