My Dave Matthews Band Obsession

     I love Dave Matthews Band. There’s nothing else quite like their lyrics and rocky celestial soundings. From the days that I knew not of love, neither self-finding, nor abysmal sadness, words that addressed such issues played in my mind as often as my inner monologue. I feel Dave Matthews’ voice is as familiar to me as my own because of that. My thoughts reflect that connection in the sense that my conceptual rationalizations and drawn penmanship are performed in the poetic approach that Dave Matthews Band has honed.

     When I am in love, songs such as “Two Step” and “Crush” play through my head. When sad, “#41” is all I hear. When in need of spirits and high hopes, an unconditional loving approach, or a way to hear my thoughts in musical form, Dave Matthews Band is what I turn to.

     Even now, I can tune out of reality to the song “Grey Street”, and hear it as I did when I was a child. The words do not make sense, but his voice carried through that saxophone arrives right at my core, and I feel the raw emotion that is brokenhearted.

     When I was a boy, I longed for the day when I could make sense of his words, so as to understand what I was feeling from his music. My attention to their music weakened a bit during high school, unfortunately. Right when I needed that music. Through my early love life I turned to alternative bands, which unsuccessfully guided me, in terms of giving understanding through my teary-eyed relationships. I felt the heartache. I found myself confused, and eventually turned to writing. I found my passion, and crafted sentences that rationalized my experiences, which later I would use to define said experiences.

     By nature of these actions, I began to create a world around me that had meaning in places it once had lacked. Now… to create your own reality so as to remain in symbols and beauty may be crazy. One's perception is what creates the universe before his/her eyes, and so… to edit my perception is to edit the world around me. To survive, I did it. To be happy, I did it. To be sad, I did it. To this day, I do it.

     Returning to Dave Matthews Band was not so much a hello after a goodbye, but more so a glance back to the direction I had sat and gazed at for so long. It hadn't changed, and it helped me find that sense of self again.

(My tattoo of the Dave Matthews Band symbol.)

P.S. My parents did a fine job by bringing my brother and I to Dave Matthews Band concerts when we were younger. That stage glows and so does the crowd.

When Things Were Bigger and Lasted Forever

     When your home was a castle, so extensive that you forgot what certain corners looked like. You’d travel up stairs, transported to a new plane of existence, where you could escape the yelling from the world below... Behind your bedroom door, you’d sit and do the things that now you consider boring. When you had an older brother who was a big brother. When you felt you and him were soul mates, and the pain it was to see him leave; a soul mate die. You thought it would last forever, and that first hit that would begin a lifelong assault on a heart you put your hand to every day to salute a flag, mumbling words you forgot, standing among friends who you thought would last forever too.

     When going to Blockbuster was a vacation on Friday nights. You’d pick out your movie from the stacked shelves, a library you didn’t mind being in. When you saw the rounded sides of the bright colored plastic sleeves that held movies, something you didn’t have to read. When sitting in front of the TV on those nights with your family, a tradition you wanted to be an adult for so as to drink those drinks your parents drank. And you wished you could laugh like they did, or speak the words you didn’t know about yet. When things were sweet and so was the ice-cream you ate every night.

     When a visit to your grandparents was also a trip to the candy store. When you ate boxed chocolates like that guy from the movie your parents rented at Blockbuster all the time. And like Forest Gump, you could run like the wind on the playground — beat all those kids just to lose in the end in a foot race with your best friend. He was the fastest. And you loved that guy with all your heart, ‘cause he was not only the fastest but the best at everything you had no interest in. When you sat next to him and felt that friendship and smelled that hair gel in his hair, the kind all the kids used to prop up their front strands.

     When your grandma died and the treats at her house didn’t seem so sweet anymore. When at the funeral you realized that things aren’t like the redwoods or tortoises you saw on the nature channel. You thought that adult was big like the red wood, hardy like the tortoise. And you cried in the pews knowing full well that you’d be crying like your mom as she watched hers being carried away. In time, you’d watch the giants that created you be killed by Mother Nature or that thing you heard called diabetes that runs in your family. When the chocolates were no longer a treat, and you started eating your vegetables. When you fought a bit less with the giants and started being reasonable. When everything became smaller as you grew and old places revisited had shrunk to a size in which you realized…there is no magic.

Thanks for always filling your water to the brim.

      One of my most prominent childhood memories was one that I shared with my mom. She however could not recall such memories because she was unconscious at the time in which the events happened.

       Every night, I would wake up at around two or three in the morning and head to the bathroom. That was my pee schedule, and it was unfortunate because I really feel I could have hit 6’ by now if it weren’t for the sleep loss as a child. Anyways, after I would finish my business in the bathroom, I would walk all the way up to my parents’ room. We lived in a town house, so there were floors to be conquered in between my room and theirs. Once I arrived at the foot of their mattress, I would make my way silently to my mother’s side of the bed, which would have been on your right if you were facing her.

      As she lay sleeping, I would watch over her for a couple minutes, waiting for her to either wake up or remain in slumber. Once my stealth was assured, I reached to the nightstand beside her head and grabbed what was to me at the time, the most precious thing in the world. In my clenched fist, I held the tall plastic cup she filled with cool water and ice. She would take a few sips before falling asleep, and for a time I believed it was making her immortal, for this water and ice was more than you could ever imagine. It offered the most crisp, primal, arctic water, more pure than God. The Tree of Life itself would become a forest if its roots were able to sip this water. This was the best water in the world.

      And so greedily, I’d cock my head back and drain that pint of water. I’d quietly chew whatever small pieces of ice that happened to fall through my baleen-like teeth. I’d wipe my mouth, set the emptied cup back on her nightstand, used and empty, and go back to bed. I will admit, most nights I was too afraid of the walk down to my bedroom and decided to sleep in the comfort of between two parents.

      I wish I was a braver kid… maybe I would have broken away from the conceptual umbilical cord sooner. But I can't blame myself for not nutting up and taking the descent: If only they knew how scary two flights of stairs in a town house was to a 6 year old — at night.

An Epiphany and an Action

     I’m wrapped tightly in my jacket with the zipper pulled all the way up. A hood shrouds my head and cheeks, blocking the sharp wind from cutting into my face like it has the back of my hands.

    
     It’s cold, but I made a commitment to these cigarettes when I first started smoking. I told them, “I will smoke you, so long as you keep my feeling alright.” They’ve kept their word throughout this time, and so have I. They’re the one thing I haven’t lied to, and with that, I’ve grown a bond with them tighter than anything I’ve forged before.

     And so out here, I am smoking them one by one. Each puff is alleviating one thought at a time. This isn’t done by magic or anything of the profound sort. Simply put, I am focusing on this cigarette, and it is making my mind feel well and calm… with that, how could I have worries?

     On my porch I am now, with my dog Jimi by my side, and music playing; melodies of Tom Waits and Dave Matthews intertwined like the strands of smoke at the end of my fingertips. I switch songs back and forth between my main artists and those who also speak of love, dreams, and struggle. My nightly routine has become a habit, much like the one I sit out here to fulfill.

     In the midst of a song titled So Damn Lucky, I can’t help but transcend my thoughts and start viewing my life as if I were a stranger. I see myself as this chump, wearing a hood, smoking his cigarettes alone on a porch, freezing. There's an emphasis on alone and cigarette. I begin to think about my current life mission, which is to be who I was before the depression and druggy remedies. I can’t help but attach the cigarette I am holding to the phase of life I slipped in and out of, and how my strong hold on this cigarette has allowed the addiction such perseverance.

     I thought to myself, “This is the last thing I’ve yet to let go of.” And at the end of that thought, I feel the unconscious muscle movement in my arm, pulling the cigarette up to my mouth. I take notice of this and begin to realize things about the habit that wasn't perceived before; how second-nature it is, how underlying it is, so sly and hard to detect. It truly is a slow motion suicide.

     This makes me understand it better, and puts the addiction into the forefront of my thoughts. I begin to think how much I’ve conquered, yet how miniscule all of those things are in the midst of this cigarette. This cigarette is so hard to control, that I've given up any thought of doing so. It's this daunting presence, and I submit to it — practically devote myself to it, even though it will kill me in time. Now, I've been in toxic relationships before, but I had always gotten out of them eventually. How would i get out of this one? 

     With this… thought of quitting now set before me, I begin to think of myself having conquered this craving. For the first time ever, I really put some time and effort into imagining the benefits of quitting. Health isn’t a concern. It never has been. If the rational were, “this is bad for my health”, and that was what got me to quit, then I would have never started in the first place! No, that will not be my answer. I don’t give a shit about my body. I need something conceptual, for I’ve already given up on the routines and guidelines of this physical world. Instead of health concerns, I think of my identity.

     Quitting cigarettes would mean the return of the Alex who was lost so long ago. Alex before the depression was ambitious, as I am now. Alex before the depression looked for the beauty in this world, as I do now. Alex before the depression was not a creature of detrimental habits, unlike how I am now. To become Alex again would mean to be everything he was, and nothing he would never be… I’m looking at my cigarette now.

     What would it take for me to quit this? Quite literally…I would just have to drop it. My hand is already outstretched with the tip of the cigarette hovering over the ash canteen. I would just need to relieve my fingertips of rigor mortis and walk inside. But to do that would be to fly. To let go now would mean self-actualization. To do that now would mean to conquer Everest. But to do that now would mean to see Alex again and have him back, and in my mind I could hug and hold him and tell him how much I missed him.

     That was my answer. That was all I needed. I felt this overwhelming sense of happiness, of excitement with little space left for reluctance. The idea of accomplishing something nearly impossible with the flick of the wrist, and in turn receive all that I’ve been searching for was something I could not pass up.

     There wasn’t much time between conception of the thought and the action, for there was no questioning needed. I pushed the end of my cigarette hard against the rim of the canteen, snapping it in half. One half of the Titanic sunk, never to be seen again. The other half was released from my hand a split second later. I stood up and went inside, taking out the pack I had bought just hours before. In the kitchen, I stood over the trashcan and split the rest of them in half with one counter-motioning of my two fists.

     I saw them broken into pieces amongst the trash. For the first time, cigarettes looked dirty.

My Shot at Revenge

     He would dance around my thunder in elementary school, waiting for the moment I would cast lightning and become amazing. Like Percy Jackson, he stole my lightning, the moments of my prime, and held them greedily as his own. He took praise for his false accomplishments. For that — he had to pay.

    
     We shall call him Percy. During games of dodge ball, Percy and I were always on opposing sides, and always were the last two players. On occasion I’d throw a ball at him. It would bounce right before him, and he’d catch it, saying it never hit the court. I would be out. He would have a festival thrown.

     Other times, my balls would change trajectory, making 90 degree right and left angles off of his person, but to his knowledge, “it didn’t hit me!”

     Later down the road, he would attend my summer camp and steal my friends; pulling them close to him and pushing them away from me. Further down the timeline… Percy would be the first person to call me gay, only after making sure the entire middle school was within ear shot. For these things as well — he had to pay.

     It was a hot week in July, during the summer between 6^th and 7^th grade. All of the campers were busy in their group activities, making the best of the inclimate weather. Unfortunately, the earth was drenched with the previous night’s rain. The heat of the day soaked most of it up, making the air sticky and heavy. Most groups were playing in a rec hall or in the lake, either escaping the humidity or diving right in.

     Our bunch, boys aged between 11-14, was in the roofed outdoor gym and preparing for a game of dodge ball. It was ominous how the game began, both Percy and I as team captains. It was known amongst the campers and counselors that we were not the best of friends. To some it was known that we were mortal enemies. So in a sick and twisted effort to see two cocks fight, they set us up to wage war once and for all (or at least the closest thing to war a 13 year old New Englander could participate in).

      I chose my people wisely, comprising my team of staunch get a ball and stand at the back kids, nimble footed soccer players who could evade and collect ammo for me, and a few guys who were known to throw footballs the farthest and baseballs the fastest. Unfortunately, Percy had done the same, and we were easily matched. It was all left up to Percy and I. We were generals, and we needed battle plans.

     In chess, one must deal with the frivolous slaying of pawns before the action can begin. Same with dodge ball, and unsurprisingly those kids who were recruited last were out first. Only once balls were in the hands of those who knew what they were doing, did the game start to intensify.

* * *

     My ammo-men were dwindling in numbers, and one of my best throwers was already out. A few of Percy’s men were in the back, trying to maneuver a 3-at-once strike attack. Percy himself was on the front line (or just enough behind it so he wouldn’t be called out due to a line penalty). He was catching balls left and right, forming a correlation between x and y. As my players were shot down (x), his players would be given rise (y). It was brutal, and it had to end. Not in front of my benched teammates, my friends who gave me their all. Not in front of his team of misfits who smiled at my demise. And certainly not in front of Percy, who would love to have me be the last one standing so he could knock me down again. I was getting older. I was getting frustrated. I had to act… but I didn’t know how.

     Soon enough, my chance was presented. Rolling from behind me, ricocheted off of a back pillar, was a highly inflated, thick rubber kick ball. Its intricate grooves held small clumps of dirt and mud, and was covered in a wet slime after being hurtled into puddles outside of the coliseum-like, stilt-supported gym. I picked it up and brushed off a side so as to have a good, non-slip surface on which to grip.

     Percy was still at the front line, eyeing all of my players with a skillful, quarterback-like eye. He caught another ball from one of my ammo collectors… the guy’s job was not to throw, but to collect for throwers! I was down another player, but I would use it to my advantage. As my ammo-man walked across the width of the gym to sit down on the bench, I used him as cover from Percy’s sight. He was my invisibility helmet, a power granted by this fallen god for sure as he walked to the bench to sit where Hades and the other lost souls sat. I nudged closer and closer to the front line, moving with this ghost of an ammo-man. I would not let him die in vain!

     After he caught my ammo-man’s ball, Percy was too busy high-fiving his revived teammate to notice me. Added to deathly invisibility offered by my fallen teammate, it’s understandable that Percy was surprised to see me standing there before him, just 6 feet away. With my big red, highly inflated, drippy wet ball cocked and ready. His eyes registered the sight and shown through themselves the fear in Percy’s soul. Physically however, he could not react quickly enough to my actions; not even an attempt to bring the ball in his hands upwards to deflect my own.

     With a narrow sight (the spot between his beady little eyes), I thrust that kickball through open air, pushing aside atoms and loose particles, leaving a trail of singed oxygen in its wake. The kick ball, super-heated by its speed through time and space, instantly ate Percy’s face, to which it was teleported by this grand opening of opportunity. His arms shuttered and the ball he was holding dropped the slowest I’ve ever seen a falling object move. Percy’s body leapt into the air, torqued and bent, his head hitting the ground before his hips could, or his ball for that matter. Percy lay on his back, silent. Everyone was silent. There was a cough, and then a shriek, and then blood stained hands were thrown in the air, begging for help, shaking with incompetence and innocence.

     I have never enacted revenge in my life better than I did that day. The taste of revenge was sweet, although tasted by him. It came in the form of a bloody nose, and a crimson red postnasal drip.

The Slow-Motion of My Life

     I closed my laptop, put on a jacket, and looked at myself in the mirror for a few moments before I left. The mirror was a “cold shower”, only I used the remedy before I did something sinister, rather than after.

     It was night and pushing close to 12 when I left. My lane was darker than usual; not many people left their porch lights on, and so I relied on the glow of the stars to illuminate my path. When I got to the hill descending down to the highway, the trees blotted out the stars, and so I used the occasional passing car to light the way. I tried remembering the sidewalk ahead when it was revealed by headlights, seeing where the bumps and cracks were so as not to trip and look like an idiot in front of myself. I was surely judging myself that night.

     At the base of the hill, I crossed the street and made my way toward the ramp of highway. I had lived my whole life in this neighborhood, but it looked so bizarre at night, along with my screwy mindset. Turning right and up the incline, I felt scared, knowing that what I was doing; how I was walking, and where I was going, was an obvious red flag to any passerby. I continued up the ramp, my breath growing weaker and pace slowing. It wasn’t so much the physicality of walking up a slope, but the circumstance that I foresaw ahead of me that caused exhaustion.

     Once reaching the crest of the exit, now level with the highway that stretched ahead, my walking sped up a little. It made me think of nature vs. nurture, and due to that overanalyzation, the pace slowed and I grew weak again. It was this kind of constant thinking and rationalizing that was making me weak. Further I tread on however, pushing aside ideas that would heal my heart and mind. With each step, I pushed away the answers I really needed. If light showed, I overlooked it - for my pain existed for a reason…everything needed a reason back then.

     My reason for that night was… well I had to see what this whole suicide thing was about.

     When I got to the bridge that loomed over the Merrimack River, I had only walked a few hundred feet on the highway. It seemed however to be a length without an end, and I had been walking for an eternity. I was so relieved to be atop the bridge. It was my destination reached, and a prospective last home. And so I felt at home, like I had a reason, like I had business to do.

     So right on the center of the bridge I stood, swaying back and forth with every car that stirred past me. Some horns blew, but I disregarded them. It wasn’t any of their business. I watched them as they drove past however, seeing them as warning signs that came and went in the blink of an eye, much like the good thoughts that coalesced but for only a second in my mind before I ditched them for wallowing. Those good thoughts required action that was so much more difficult than resting in my little dark space, the room in my mind. In that room I could be as I wanted, and as said on The Rifleman, “a small room can be very big and very empty."I filled that space with memories that were tangible- almost. I loved to touch those thoughts, be close to them and feel comforted.

     That was the reason for suicide. My present life didn’t give me what I wanted, yet the ideas and thoughts in my head entertained me and loved me still. If what I was living for was only conceptual, then why not be in a place where I’d be free from the physical world and all of its challenges? If anything, ditching this planet would give me a 50/50 chance at a sanctuary. Either there’d be something, or there wouldn’t be. Life had become too difficult, and to risk my “life” for there to be asylum — well — it was a risk I was willing to take.

     Looking down at the waters below; swirling with flux and a nether-like appeal, it truly did seem like my portal to another world. The moon’s reflection in the water was the bull’s-eye, and hitting it would mean entering through the portal. It looked so nice.

     That was the only charm however.

     The sound of the current below, the water slamming against the pillars of the bridge, made this deafening roar. The vortex of wind created by the bridge’s hull added to the thunder. In fact, from all directions came drumfire. The traffic behind me was loud with the occasional horn. All together, the sound wasn’t normal. The world I had stepped into had neither rhyme nor reason, and that existence was not one I wanted to dive in headfirst.

     I made my way back down the highway and off the exit, bitter and sore. That night I found out I had to live in this world.

(A painting I had done around that time)

Saying What You Mean

(a couple days before my 19th birthday)
     Would you want to go for a walk?

     I asked it while giving everything away. He knew immediately what the walk would entail, and with hesitation, he said yes. To my happiness, he said yes.

     We headed in the direction of his old elementary school, a few hundred feet from his house. There were swing sets on its playground, ones he would sit on in desperate times to clear his head. On this trek towards the swing sets however, his head would not be cleared, but forced to accept new thoughts, or alterations to ones he held true.

     It had just rained, causing the amount of light to double, the streetlamps reflected in puddles. The night was cold, and both of us were shivering, adding even more trepidation to our voices. I tried starting off the conversation with light talk of a project I’d be working on once I returned home. He stopped me before I could say what class it was for.

     Why’d you come up here, Alex?

     I was ready for it. I had it all in my head, each sentence perfectly crafted to convey the truest of meaning. Once I was put on the spot though, they were all skewed, and I paused in attempt to get my groundings. Unfortunately, one of the last sentences came out first.

     I still love you.

     He knew it was coming. He knew I’d fuck up right away, and he was ready for it.

      Alex, you have to stop. You can’t keep driving to me, expecting everything to go back the way it was.

     “Oh, how silly of me to want love. My apologies,” I thought. That was my instant reaction to his negation. To speak it would be callow though, and would only make me look just as childish as my love for him. I wiped out any notion of going off on my practiced soliloquy, and started a new. With a breath taken only to prevent fainting, I shot out the prior nine months within 25 minutes.

     It was beautiful. I spoke of the depression, the thoughts of suicide, my foolish attempts to replace his love, and explained the motivation that kept me driving back to Minoa every chance I could get. I had already written all of this down in papers and journals, summarized it in a book, and had informed my entire network of friends and family over the time apart. It was such a thrill to finally tell Him himself. After I completed my rant, I expected only the most reasonable reaction from him. “Thank you, Alex, for loving me in that way. I love you too.”

     What I expect is not what happens however. He kicked me off the soapbox and stood tippy toed atop it in my place. He shot down every theatrical thought and action I had told him of with analytical rationale. He considered my thoughts of suicide as a form of weakness, even though he had been in the same place before. Everything he said though, with such conviction and concrete analysis, did not make sense. My words were truer, held more human value, and followed the mapping of love. His sounded like denial and negativity. I was life, bursting with hope. He was that night, cold and reflecting my light falsely.

     Every “no” and “stop” led me to feeling dead. Because of that, I felt that every step I took was meaningless, for I did not exist anymore. Walking actually seemed like a chore, painful to do even. If I did not exist, why would I choose to keep perceiving work if no work was actually being done? My walking slowed significantly. I was a shade, a ghost, a memory of his walking beside him, haunting him.

     I tried last feeble attempts to convince him he was wrong, for another chance at life together. Every shaking sentence spoke was denied with a squinted gaze. His eyes were freezing me, staring with an expression of disgust and a lack of respect. I felt small.

     I had to accept it though. He wasn’t the person I knew all that time ago. He was older and had more to say and less to think. I swallowed my pride and agreed to move on. Can you believe that? I drove six hours just to promise I would never do it again.

     Well we ended our walk on that note, as well as right in front of the swing sets by his house. I stopped and stared at them, and he asked me if I was coming with him. I told him I needed to sit down. I wasn’t going to use his medium of thinking however. Those swings were tainted with a sad history. I instead sat on a bench beside the swing sets. From there, I watched his figure in the distance disappear behind houses as he walked back home.

     I started immediately, the tears streaming on command. I sat and cried, wishing I was at home, wishing I was content with my life. It brought back a memory of being in my mother's arms, being able to cry shamelessly because I felt safe. The only difference was; I didn't have my mother and I didn't feel safe. I still cried shamelessly however. There was no need for shame. I had nothing to lose. I had nothing to give. I had nothing to love. I had nothing at all.

     I walked back to his house after a few minutes, not wanting to grovel in such a low state of life. I didn’t know what to do with myself there. That was his place to thrive, not mine, and I was not about to make swing sets in Minoa a lasting memory. It had no place within me, and neither did I in Minoa.