It’s been a while. This is about an instance I ventured from my room to get roundhouse kicked in the face by a gen-z in a Turnstile mosh pit. I said I would and it did happen. I think that’s what they mean by manifesting. I could go on about violence as a controlled substance, how the inflamed burn of skinned knees and palms caused my cheeks to flush with serotonin in a way that my meds don’t always. There’s some other essay about pain and the mundane— this isn’t quite it.
I went to a concert and this is what I saw and thought — it just need space to sit.
08/21/2021
Everyone’s saying this seems impossible. I know they mean that we are elbow to elbow and that I’ve seen several girls show how their narcan fits into their tiny square purses. I think it’s easier to get into heaven than it is to get a doctor you trust. I figure if I get to heaven I’ll gofund my tuition, room & board. I can’t imagine that all dimensions aren’t in some kinda grind. It’s impossible someone says and I can’t tell if they mean that we have to fundraise year-round for things that shouldn’t happen to people, how there’s still empty houses a walk from Clifton Park and there’s much less benches and bus tops. I know they mean that we’re outside, that we’re exposed, that we’re booking testing appointments at the 24/hr rite aid while someone is trying to walk on skulls. I know they mean it feels impossible and it’s to describe the humidity, it’s to describe that we could spend so much time alone but only have refined our exclusionary devices.
We are eager about the unknown, anyone who doesn’t resemble something mirror-reflective and that we hate. I want to feel closer but I know I’m the type that fucks with the vibe, that droops the toothbrush-ed baby hairs from heart shaped faces. What feels impossible is life and knowing that in between the order and chaos theories is what we consider fun. It’s that we need more representation to build empathy.
We need to see gossip girls of color and I want you to know if you ever drive under that one underpass in DC off Blair Road l lived in a car across from the fast food joint. I always wonder how or why my biological mom didn’t and still cannot drive a car. I’m grateful that you can crowdfund healthcare and that people think the decay of another is their problem. The progress is shocking to me like living in a car when you can’t drive — I like to think when it comes to my mother she just made due. I would be dead if my friends hadn’t saved my life. If you don’t put a dollar in the bucket it won’t come back to you and yes, you’re apart of the circle, yes, the worst can happen to anyone. In DC now they call the area that underpass resides NOMA because all the transplants have a hard time saying street names until they’re mapped out on Strava.
It’s the way how around 3pm before the show my friends and I retreat in our homes, find our respective flat surface and lay flat succumbing to dread. It seems like a memory when Farrah is lifting her camera and Owen hands me hot pink ear plugs. On a bench we sit exhausted, bike shorts are waterlogged, and we’re eating Ekiben and mumbling about limp bizkit and b9 boards.
A few hours from now I’ll revel in seeing youths dressed like a Delia's catalog and I’ll think you weren’t even born then but hell, you’re alive right now. Teri smells like fresh flowers. We aren’t sure if this will mean anything, what’s the point of listening to live music— are we too old for this, am I cool enough, will I see anyone I know? Do you remember me? Titan picks me out of a crowd and says “damn girl, I know your face, I know your face, come here give me some love.” It’s dancing to Whitney Houston with Abbey before the hardcore show. How come it’s so easy to lose meaning, how come this life isn’t always so easy—
The sky looks like a misheard lyric like “Cotton candy, sweet as gold.” It’s all bubblegum and laffy taffy and when I looked up after throwing my body into the pit, the sky looked like it was throwing it back at me. Brendan is on stage and Franz has the bass growling and you know how Zappa said describing music is like dancing about architecture but maybe he didn’t ever go to a hardcore show and see people cannonball into gravel. It’s weird but for this moment we shared we were born for this moment.
There’s something cinematic about how inevitably what we do we become. Who had a hand in this? I often ask Fate but the only reply is when the thread is cut. Scream, shout, strut. I didn’t expect the gig to be so tender. There’s an acrid smell of sweat and cigarette smoke for balance. There’s a bad fall, silence and a boot too close to my face. Rachel sipping soju and cow print bucket hats and Paris keying open a white claw. Sam’s missing his girl and I get it; I am missing the world. It’s everyone I missed and everyone I never knew. A live music missed connection.
Hours earlier — there’s this milky rendering of an emotion, fat separating, and it’s opaque. It sits and ferments in my stomach— sadness as a probiotic. It’s the way we push through hanging on the promise of connection— at very least we will donate, at very least we will get some sun, at very least we will hear some hits, at very least we will be in a different area code. The dread will hit differently, I swear, let’s get up and go. Every time I interact with someone I think about how much I want to be here on Earth and how much I want to be on the moon. The feelings don’t seem to coexist and simply stratify like the atmosphere.
It’s how we are here right now and we could be anywhere else — I text that I want to see the carnage of the pit but most I want to catch people when they’re falling. I want to fall and miss the hands that are tired and hit rock bottom. The mosh pit is a metaphor. I want to struggle to get back up and think this seems familiar. A young man drove up from Roanoke, Virginia with his girlfriend and this is his first hardcore show. I say “you drove this far for this?” And he said something like “well I just wanted to support and everything seems impossible.”
Yeah, I just need this to have some space.
Kelly