While capable of achieving abstract thought of the highest order, the human brain tends to function best when compartmentalizing data into manageable pieces. For example, the state in which one resides is useful in a macro view of geolocation, but largely useless when it comes to ordering a pizza. As such, our species developed streets, postal codes, cardinal directions, and a whole host of determining factors to describe your home with enough clarity to ensure your disc of cheesy goodness arrives safe and sound.

By this same token, we break down and discuss music. For the most part, all humans can say that they enjoy music to some degree or another.  But for those whose passion extends beyond using the radio for background noise, there’s a point where the specificities of what we absorb aurally merges with part of our socio-cultural identity. Whether this is reflected in your sudden urge to wear strapped sandals and listen to Grateful Dead live bootlegs while slack-lining or constantly refreshing a subreddit so you know which warehouse space is hosting a tech-house set until dawn, the most passionate amongst us eventually become that which we absorb. These things become fractalized versions of ourselves. After all, someone who has never had their heart broken probably won’t appreciate Elliot Smith as much as the rest of us.

It is on the fringes of these musical personalities that we find *******. Combining the most aggressive tendencies of metal with the politics and personality of street punk, ******* is an amalgam of all things angry. Exhibiting a neb-tribalism not often seen in other subsets of music, ******* “kids” (Kids can be used to define ages ranging from 13 to 45 depending on context) understand that a sweaty basement filled with people pummeling one another will never become a societal norm. And they revel in the misanthropy.

However, this is not to say that ******* kids are fueled only by rage. From it’s inception in punk scene during the late 1970’s, the entire point of ******* has been to create a community dedicated to supporting one another during our darkest times. Sure that occasionally means punching your friend in the head, but that’s only because we haven’t figured out how to punch the geo-political turmoil of Earth in the head just yet.

Whether extolling the virtues of veganism, Straight Edge, ecocriticism, economic inequality, anti-racist and anti-racist movements, or simply just talking about how alone we can feel inside of our own heads, ******* at it’s best seeks to improve the space husk we’re all floating around on. By virtue of these lofty goals, ******* swiftly takes on a communal nature due to the common belief that we are all united against an existence which does not reflect us. Rob Lind said it best: “*******’s not much. But for some of us, it’s all we’ve got.”

Then one clear morning in December, my father died. And suddenly ******* was all I had left.

Obviously, I still had my siblings and friends. But after all, the ethos of ******* always managed to echo everything my father taught me to believe. Whether that be standing up for someone getting picked on because they’re different, refusing to place trust in authority, or rallying all the other lost souls and building your own society two steps to the left of the mainstream.

So, as an autopsy was being performed to ensure the skin, organs, and long bones of Robert Rathburn’s arms were harvested for donors, I stood in the alleyway of the Nile Theater listening to the bass reverberate through the asphalt as Iniquity, Beg For Life, Troubled, No Altars, and Iron Curtain played to a packed basement below.

Admittedly, this was a show I was supposed to be reviewing, and this piece was also due months ago. However, my time was instead spent shaking hands and hugging people I’ve spent the better part of 20 years building a small, fractured, but loving community with. At the end of the day, I suppose that’s all ******* has ever and should ever be about. Communally channeling the hurt and anger into fists and screams until it stings a little less and the emptiness of the world wanes ever so slightly.

has never seen a wisteria tree.
has seen a willow tree, from a distance, and 
grew up near four cherry trees that would
flower early every spring,  light pink and white petals
only there for a moment-
only to be knocked off
to rot in piles on the driveway, petals
falling onto the asphalt, onto shoulders,
falling all around  and feeling like a dream.
imagines a wisteria tree a little like that-
feeling like a dream.
hearing, somewhere that they're beautiful
when in bloom-
purple? maybe?
light blue? Also a possibility-
wonders what they're like when not,
spindly branches or thick twisting ones,
unsure of the specificities but knows that
it is beautiful because it is real,
somewhere else,
some other frame of reference.
has seen an aspen tree, the Rockies alive with them
standing on a mountain and looking out at the
waves of them and thinking that maybe that the Earth
breathes too, that
it was her chest rising and falling too
slow to perceive with
human eyes.
knows nothing of the aspen's fate from a plague of beetles,
remembers someone describing the trees as
being "eaten alive" but doesn't remember quite
who said it.
has seen a pine tree, climbed its branches as a child,
places warm palms against its trunk now,
every once and awhile looks up and
remembers how it felt-
how what felt?
the beginning of everything-
of looking out into the
sprawling earth as she breathes,
and the vast emptiness of the sky
and feeling alive.
has seen an oak tree, planted one in fact,
has Not seen a redwood.
does not know what a cherry or maple looks like
despite best efforts,
cannot remember the beetles,
despite best efforts,
cannot reach the top of the pine,
despite best efforts,
still cannot picture the wisteria tree.

Who among us has not?
Well...
Well, what?

Specificities fall to the floor:
we are what we are.
Nothing more.
Nothing more.

Tears refuse to fall
Or cannot help but remain.
Tears or notears, poison all the same.

The walking Shadow:
relentless in its crawling means.
What of Sound?
What of Fury?

I hope
I hope
I hope....
I hope your eyes bleed until the light pours out.

[we live]
these
days
eyes, raw ringed: mauve.
dustcurtains. lung-still
and                 dry



cover gasping-
fingers sanded down, dusted away
to later be inlaid
with something
else.
grappling clever-
broken bird feet.
the gaping is wide enough down here
even
for you


wanting to be a victim of something good-
lapping up *** of(f) belly hair
entangled.

and

as every human speck
fights for selfpreservation- without clairvoyance or beauty.
as the mud pumps.
as carmen plays.
as we die again in less than convenient specificities.


we will be replaced.


like furniture.

and those who seek to optimize everything
right down the efficiency of shampoo in the shower-
will leave with nothing  
                           more than a clean head of hair


to fall from these, slowly
or quicker than that- depending on the mood of it. and things like
cancer.


and when the chemicals
find you
laying there alone. and sleepy
they will know to carry you outside into the yard. where the grass is
waiting
and the road is waiting
and the rain.
and the sound of cars.
and of   trees.

big-*******-trees.
roots gnarled meanly into the dark.rotty droppings of their boughs.
cold. mighty- dragging their bruisey knuckles against the
dirt
trees with ghosts
bigger than your thumbnails.
older than the grossest things in your
waste-basket.
tree-er than
tree.

and when the car swerves
and hits
i will be there.


sinking with you
into the the reservoir
doors closed.
belted.
and good


.but
i will be

and we
fall apart
don't speak
for days.


learn of the other too late.

(lost 13% of my baby)


the littlest one turned three in May,
haven’t seen her in the flesh since March,
parents inform, all gone,
they’ll be disappearing
to another state,
all of July, gonzo.

I say
go forth safely, that’s great.

redefining social distancing.

measured not in feet,
or even by Sara B.’s
borrowed ‘many the miles,’
but in longer specificities:

maturities,
weeks and months,
parts of years,
parts of lives,
March, April,
May, June,
now July.

five months.

counted them on one hand,
many times,
at 3:00am
cause I could not believe
the summing of my subtraction

somehow disappeared,
from our calendars
these monthly ** markings,
months wiped clean permanently.

did a quick calculation.
we’ve lost 13% of her
entire life,
can’t be regained.

her first:
big girl bed,
playing first video game,  
another birthday party,
candles extinguished by
a single big girl blowing,
dancing, dancing, and more,
driving her scooter in the apartment,
like only a mad woman can,
(stuffed animal riding the handlebars,)
blowing pretend Zooming belly kisses
on her button,
hiding neath the dining room table,
her laughing uproariously,
with never a “stop poppy.”

13%.
a specific amount,
a poem irretrievable,
a blood loss, that
can’t be transfused,
plasma irreplaceable,
containing antibodies
to a specific virus
Sorrow Unique-19

nah,
nothing  
it got nothing
to do with that new forehead
furrow, that slow-suddenly appeared.

nah.

“just, these are the days...”^