Ablaze in This Haze

Light & Motion [II]

I find the urge to be upset about everything right now understandable, I really do, but there are times that is just too depressing an ask.

I can't with this Chris Cornel news today, I can't

And then I see the picture, eyes-so-pinned, and my jaw tightens

And then I'm on my way to meet a friend for brunch, a friend I used to see for brunch here all the time, a friend I miss, a friend I am excited to see,

and his voice

comes on, track 3 of a random mix cd, head down

I sit down inside at the brunch place and his band's album is playing overhead and of course it is,

that's the right thing, and I'm glad to hear it even as my gut tightens, even as I lament to my friend how

his voice

has to join the chorus of dead musicians' voices now, reminding me they're dead every time I hear them and

maybe I don't even need to know they're dead, and I don't need to know them by their death

Then again, Chris Cornell was a poet, so I guess the death association was there with him all along

in a way it wasn't with Prince or David Bowie and I'm not listing them, I'm not thinking any more

about George Michael

playing in a store last month, making my teeth touch

Gov. Mike Pence Used Private Email to Conduct State Business & It Was Hacked {Static} {Static}

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Light & Motion [1]

Sometimes, when you are on a bus in Queens, both your parents' point of origin & a place you were nonetheless surprised to find yourself living seven years, you hear a low-mouthed rambling whooshing kind of mealy mouthing behind you, in one of the dozen or so standard Caucausian Queens accents that were peripheral, not central, to your life growing up nearby: the one that, upon more regular exposure, has become your least favorite of the bunch and here he is, bus-close. A low-mouthed rambling whooshing kind of mealy mouthing behind you, ever louder, ever more rambling complaining, pumping negative opinions, everyone's out to get me and it's not because I'm talking to myself in public about how no one but me understands and is horrible horrible they just don't know anything not like I do not like I do

Sometimes, this becomes your president talking

Sometimes, this sort of thing ends in impeachment, sometimes

Sometimes, self-ejection becomes a virtue.

George Michael

my pre-teenage & teenage & young woman selves, respect: he was sacred, and a beacon of, say, alternative sexiness, much like Prince and David Bowie. but listening to this now is like an elevator right back to how I felt then, my pre-teenage & teenage & young woman selves, discovering men, discovering rampant limitations right along with them, looking for and finding men who were also interested in transcending said rampant limitations, respect: George "this time I think that my lover understands me" Michael and Godspeed to your unapologetic sexuality, your hotness, scoffed at and belittled by men of a certain mindset (stuck), yet you had a clear religious bent, too, as I remembered watching the acoustic versions of Freedom '90, an anthem for a reason, an icon for a reason, and I remember you were treated like shit, outed, belittled, and the clear and understandable impact it had on you, and that mattered to a lot of people, and you seemed to overcome it. I mean, you know not everybody has got a body like you, both a body of work and a literal body like you, if that's any solace: not everybody has got a body like you, George Michael