Untitled for those crushed under the boot of the patriarch but refused to die and became beautiful, and for the dead of the Ghost Ship, an excerpt from a longer meditation

“Reality scared the shit out of her too” - Lydia Lunch




Unloved sidewalks of America. Lonely breezes in the suburbs. Closed up houses, stifled with anger, blood, and lingering rape. These houses don’t love and she is surprised they don’t collapse in ugly mold and nocturnal bleeding. A teenager, an idea new to the American century. Hungry, angry, and cannibalistic, most are afraid to be alone with her. The rapists and junkies choose different alleys. She builds little mountains of her bad energy tries to push them into crowds of people. Most walk out of buildings now tainted with anger. Fear is on everyone’s mind. A body lies in the park for a week. Electricity is free on the street, and the break ins are irregular. One break in the thief cut his arm and left streaks where he made his rounds of the apartment scouring for valuables. He found little. Soon he would be in the park. This city will eat you, it will eat even its own rats before it dies.

Car crashes and asthma begin to stalk the youth. Broken glass in bloody hair. Bikes dragged for blocks. The walls moving, lungs ceasing to function. Asleep at the wheel waking to pine trees fluttering their needles in the wind and everyone dead, walk for miles screaming at cars to stop in the dark.

She couldn’t decide if owning a gun was a good idea. She would probably kill some motherfucker for no reason. Probably should just walk up and grab one off one these cowardly junkies and rapists scattered around.

Fires spread on the highways of California, sometimes smoldering in the distance, sometimes kissing the shoulders, taking a truck or car here and there, and other times like waves it powers over the both sides of the highways melting cars abandoned by fleeing drivers. The fire manages to sneak into the cities, to hide in the walls of houses and warehouses. Then it spreads and can kill in minutes.

You’ve known these places for years. Cramped, cluttered, with no protections. Forgotten, filled with paint and cords. Fire doesn’t care that these places saved your life, fire doesn’t care at all. Fire just appears when allowed. Your emotions or desire to not die painfully aren’t concerns for fire. These places saved your life. They saved you from living in your hometown with curdled aspirations, drinking beer on the back porch as moths electrocute themselves, the heat barely vanished from the day. The only loudness, drugged teens in their cars traveling the night, hoping to break free from this.




“What are you afraid of?” - Bikini Kill