10.27.2011

die

Nothing really gets me more interested in music than listening to musicians talk about music. And nothing wakes me up from being down in the dumps than music.

I'd abandon words, and writing, I'd abandon it all if I could simply say, "I'm having a hard time," and have that mean something to anyone. Because I lay my words down like bridges but I'm the only person crossing them.

In my dreams, all my fathers forsake me. It leaves clots in my veins and a pounding in my head.

It's the same winter coat, with the same dead leaves and the same cloying grey. If, for half a moment, I can walk on a stretch of sidewalk soaked in the sun and imitate Christopher Owens' walk while singing "Honey Bunny", if I can listen to "Surf Solar" by Fuck Buttons on repeat with the volume turned up, it feels remotely like conversation.

In the end, the people I remember most in the last year aren't the ones that I've told, "I'm having a hard time". It's the Noah Lennoxes, the Avey Tares, the Owen Palletts, the Bradford Coxes, the Christopher Owenses and Peter Silbermans of the world that tuck me into bed at night and whisper, "Sometimes it's like that."

10.05.2011

this is starting to fuck with my head (you can count on me)

At 21 it seems a little irresponsible to have already lost two fathers.

As if I might lift up the couch cushions and find him there, arms wrapped around my mother, spreading peanut butter on a saltine still.

You'll have to excuse the language, because I was 6 when I started saying "bastard" and I'd ride in my father's truck and ask the meaning of every curse word I could think of as he drove me to school.

There are certain things that I can't believe are truly over. I still feel like you'll be there, as you always were. Because that's what fathers do, right?

I guess I wouldn't know.

10.01.2011

cuckoo, cuckoo

If I think about the last few years before the end of the world and can press my lips in a straight line, it feels remotely like staying.

I used to try and clean the driveway with a toothbrush, until the bristles wore down and the skin on my knuckles rubbed off on the pavement. You used to smile as you walked by.

If I sit with my head against the window of the bus and I remember you swinging me across the surface of the water, it feels exactly like we lost you.

I don't want to remember you like I'm trying to prove you were ever here.

Was there ever a good way to lose a father?