05.12.03 - 12:18 pm
i wanted to paint it all black.

You
drove by in a black
or perhaps brown Honda
long before the show and
looked at all of us
waiting to hear
the gospel
according to you.

The girl in
front of me
(some highschool aged
bimbo, i wanted
to tell her
i was
going to stab her
in the head) screamed
"I love you,
you are beautiful!"

And I wondered if she even
knew the words.

And we are your wind-up
cars in motion
as we swirl into the
room, two hours
of sitting
along the wall outside
and now we are here.

They touch me, check
my purse, make sure I'm not
some suicide bomber;
but don't find my cigarettes
and that's okay, because I won't smoke
them in here.

It's just a crowded room,
nothing magical
when you take the stage,
drunk and coughing,
finally, after two bands that
no one paid
much mind to but me.

("Arab Strap was lovely, don't
you think?" we say
to each other.)

From where I stand,
three rows back, head
upturned, it looks
like you are wearing eyeliner as you
take up your guitar and
stare
wide-eyed as a child in front
of the penguin exhibit at the zoo
out over this unruly throng.

And if I could I'd apologize
for the people in this crowd, but
they are yours, not mine, to apologize
for; the girls that scream
your name as you pretend
not to want it, you say you don't
want this fame
but

somewhere in the depths of you
something lurks that eats it up,
a sort of elder god of the soul, a
soul-cthulhu that grows
each time some pretentious
little girl screams your name coupled
with an offer of sex.

Perhaps
you are right, and everything
you are now is trite
and a waste of my time, but the old
words still mean so much, still
cut like knives as we all sing about
wolves and war and love.

But
there's so much more bullshit now, from
the way you stand, to the way
you
slow
slow
slow
singing to some girl in the balcony
like some boy wonder;

And you cough between lines
and end the show early,
the children leaving disappointed
but me,
I just leave.

Someone tell me
this will all blow over soon.



------------------------

My boyfriend and I went to see Bright Eyes at the Sokol Auditorium last night. I am never going there again to see any Saddle Creek band. I'd rather drive the extra hour to Minneapolis.

.drink up baby, look at the stars. // .i'll kiss you again, between the bars.