Here I Am: Springfield, MO.

Here I am on an off-night in Springfield. It hit me between the eyes with machine gun precision and staccato slugs of rapid-fire and irate frenzy. Here I am taking shots of garlic vodka until it came out my nose. Here I am being carried to the ceiling on the fat mineral shine of Golden Giant's volume. Here I am getting smacked in the nose in a Reacharounds mosh pit. Here I am dancing my drunken ass off with Shea and Matt and Lisa and Katie. Handfuls of flesh and beer poured from an arm's length above my upturned face. We built this city on rock and roll. Here I am at Danny's house, standing on chairs and grinding expensive beer into the carpet. Here I am like a lightning bolt across town, like a bottle rocket, like a pinball. Weed krispie treats and the Hold Steady exploding through melting vinyl siding and turning my eyes into windows against a wall of jelly. Here we are, impeccable warriors, smiling at the all-knowing pigs who insisted on coming into the girls' house, sniffing the weed air like crooked preachers, leaning against their squad cars, smug and salivating for an admission of guilt, for a Mitsubishi smashing through a stop sign, for a carton of narcotics stashed in a spare tire, for brains and hair matted on dashboard and reeking of cheap whiskey, for a chance to shoot a few young werewolves in the back. But they slunk back to their sty disappointed, their condemning eyes hungy and heavy with resentment. No match for Shea and his hand signals, his melding with the Mirage. And like that Mirage, in that Mirage, as a mirage, we drifted home confused and brainless, leaving a trail of skull fragments like breadcrumbs.