At Long Last:

MY EYES FEEL LIKE THEY’RE GONNA BLEED
- “Brain Stew” by Green Day

And I haven’t been the same since
that stinking-hot night in May,
when I hurled my voice inside
the stadium’s concrete womb.

We assembled to forget in Section C,
too far from the stage, so we jumped
the gate into a pit of pierced tongues,
of green and purple hair, of fists,

and I haven’t been the same since.
The puke stuck to my shoes,
a skinhead’s elbow sharp against
my face. My soul spilled out my mouth.

Crowd-surfing, riding the shoulders,
trying to break the barrier of hands
and heads, thrown into midnight
while pyros breached the dark. Black out.

And I haven’t been the same since
I woke with story of a scar. The gutter
life so close to death it’s almost sweet.
And I haven’t been the same since,

limping to the bus, I felt the blood
drip down my chin. My eye swelled
shut, shutting away what it had seen before,
shutting the pain into a box of night.




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