nat done

I could keep an arc
For anyone who asked
Though everyone else's concave
Always puts them simply back
I could keep your sea shell
And let you drench us both in pearls
Because every time you've bared your teeth
I wish you could only tell.

Coachella Memoir

The air around my head was thick and smoky, as ghosts were drawn from the cherries of thousands of cigarettes. If you ever wanted to hear the sound of a heart breaking, I know of a place where you could listen. Or, you could be greeted with the familiar croons of a first love, possibly in combination with the awkward beats of your high school basement boredom.
The sun penetrated through the atmosphere, reaching the newborn skin of foreigners and forgetful first-timers. After willingly crawling out of the sauna that we once mistook for a vehicle, we excitedly trudged like cattle towards the heavy bass, loud enough that it could be heard from twenty minutes away. My feet had become lily pads, feeling thick and flat as I stumbled through the dusty terrain of the Californian desert. Hundreds of thousands of people flooded through the field, synthesizing in to one multi-colored puddle of avid music-goers, dehydrated lobsters, and drugged up, ecstatic party monsters.
Showing up unintentionally, but fashionably, late, my delirious feet carried me to the Outdoor Stage. I weaved through the collection of people like needled thread, bringing with me the person who I most wanted to experience this event with. My anticipation urged me forward, until the opening in the crowd closed off behind me. This left me placed beside an oversized Hawaiian man and his even larger friend, who seemed almost as enthralled as I was to be at this particular set.
A few minutes passed while I prepared my camera with the most accurate ISO setting for the new lighting. Dull murmurs emerged from the crowd, as I looked up to see what I had been imagining for years.
Donning an oversized and out-of-character cowboy hat, rolled up, worn-in jeans, and an awkward pair of boots, my musical God skipped onto the over-crowded stage in an intoxicated manner.
Before a word escaped Conor Oberst’s mouth, before his fingers caressed a string on his aging acoustic guitar, my heart erupted in unison with my eyes, as a river of tears trailed down my elated cheeks.
Like clockwork, my emotions set off the sounds of the Mystic Valley Band, fronted by the musician I fell in love with years before. During the third song, my parade of tears and delight continued with no signs of stopping, as the enthusiastic Oberst fan beside me sang along to every tune the way I did. Noticing my crying, the Hawaiian man and his friend snatched my camera to aid me in photographing the event, as my height and apparent emotional state was stopping me from getting a clear view. In addition, they laughed, hugged me, and insisted on snapping a memory of me in my blurry-eyed condition.
After the glistening tracks on my cheeks dried with the aid of the fiery sky, I managed to regain enough composure to sing along through my idol’s beautiful mind. As the sun hung slightly underneath half-mast, the oranges and purples of dusk drenched the stage, as Conor Oberst ended his set as perfectly as he began it.

“So thank you friends for the time we shared. My love stays with you like sunlight and air. Oh how I truly wish I could keep hanging around here but my joy is covering me. Soon, I will disappear”

CN Memoir.

Imagine a room dripping entirely in monochromatic colors. Housing gray floors, black furniture, white accents, and a mixture of sister-colors, this limited color palette drowns the small box. Imagine sliding the white trimmed glass door to your right, immediately after fumbling with the lock intended to keep the wooden gate closed.
I push the familiar dark-washed curtains out of my path, and awkwardly trip into my second home. This isn’t my second home now, nor was it a year ago, or ten years ago, but it was for the time being, and I know I will always allow it to be .
Without hesitation, I would drop what was occupying my arms, instantly making the small room untidy, splotched with brightly colored bags. Only after fully completing this routine would I actually look up at the face I always looked forward to seeing.
As if I were at my own home, I would barely breathe before I ducked under the covers of my second bed, submerging myself under the grayscale room. He always questioned but accepted my weird attachment to blankets, and how I’ve never entered my second home without planting my body into those sheets.
There was always something dancing upon the obnoxiously large flat screen television, perched above a black cabinet featuring two translucent misted-gray doors. It varied between two options, however, a violent video game that I was eager to play, or a movie I most likely had never heard of.
For countless hours, we would remain half slouched in potentially spine-damaging positions, as we shifted through the two previously mentioned television options. My mother interrogated me every night. “What did you do all day? Really? Why? Aren’t you bored? Why don’t you go do something instead of spending so much time there?” she would inquire in an overly-annoying way.
The truth was, contrary to everyone’s beliefs, I was never remotely bored during my days at my second home. Nor could I ever grow tired of someone who I was irrevocably connected with, the first person to remain at my level for more than an hour. The first person who was considerate enough to return all of the things I was used to giving away.
The majority of autumn and early winter was spent here, in silence, in slurs of video-game curse words and slanders, and in storms of new and old music.
He often made his signature dinner dish, as it was truly the only thing he was capable of making. We became five-minute chefs as we boiled penne pasta noodles and coated them in a blanket of pre-made tomato sauce. On one rare occasion, we attempted to incorporate chicken into the recipe, which turned out unfortunately, forcing us to both pretend to enjoy the delicacy that was mysteriously unpleasant. Our food adventures did not stop there, as a favorite memory of mine took place in that similarly color-coated kitchen. One afternoon, my famished stomach led me to the fridge where I attempted to remove a pizza box similarly placed like a “Janga” tower. Unfortunately for me, an entire carton of blueberries lurked underneath the box. After the violet filled plastic felt the desire to catapult itself off the shelf, what seemed like millions of blue marbles scattered all over the floor. Through volcanic laughter, the occupant of my second home refused to help me clean up the mess, leaving me to spend nearly thirty minutes picking up each sphere one by one.
It wasn’t the food scandals, or the selection of entertainment, or the comfortable form-fitting bed that kept me returning to my second home. I wasn’t drawn to the salt and pepper static that draped over the room, or the only cat that was ever remotely nice to me. It was the face I remember, the spastic laughter constantly rupturing the silence, the first person who I synthesized with flawlessly. My second home is the house of my best friend.

unfinished.

Return to who you were for her
I'll be the milk for your bones
Take my skin like the porcelain cure
I'll be the water over your tired hands
Run your tongue through telephone spirals
Be the second side of my boomerang
If take-out plates try to hang from your eyes
I'll sautee whatever makes you clean again

Keep a fire under your throat
Keep it there when you think of me
I'll walk you backwards like I have before
Trying to breathe in what I think you see