So get this. I’m campin’ in an RV on the westside of the state. Ya know. One of those, twenty somethin’ year olds has an existential crisis getaways. Logan booked it for the two of us. She just started gettin’ into LSD and the Search for God. What else would a millennial do besides take acid in the woods? Layin’ in the middle of the creek. Blue circular shades blockin’ the rays of life beatin’ down from the sky from my black holed pupils. The shallow water suspends my back lifelessly over the sand. Haven’t been able to find the words to write in a while. Not that I have the confidence to share what I write with the general public anyways. But I’ve been feelin’ uninspired. Overtired. Like buryin’ a bullet in the walls of my skull. Ripples of my braindead matter. And Patti Smith swirls around my head. “Pissin’ in a river…”
So I’m layin’ in this creek. Scoopin’ the sand from the bottom. Pullin’ it outta the water. Watch the liquid of life escape from the mound of rocks in my hands. Watch ‘em transform from a molten creature of mush. As the liquid drips out. Leavin’ a lifeless pile of debris dried up in my pruned up hands. On the muddy banks. Two blackholes stick out to stare at me. Can’t even tell where the muddy slime of the sand starts and the blob of frog begins. But you can see it breathe. The same way the sand breathes in your hands as the water runs from it.
And I’m layin’ in this river. Trees twist and curl over my head. Some sideways. Rotted. Covered in scales of fungus and fur of grass. Sayin’ against all odds I will grow. Despite the tractors and ATVs in the distance. Patti Smith croons through my skull as I watch the water rise. And fall from the sand I pull out from under it. A clam twitches in my palm. Bleps out a wad of sand and water onto me. You ever see that shit in real life man? It’s far out when a clam sticks it’s tongue out at ya. Blep.
The dragonflies man. They dance with each other in the sky. I didn’t know nature could create the patterns of an oil strip rainbow. Like the Zippo Logan got me when we first started dating. Metallic greens and blues. Even some purple lookin’ ones. They sit on the leaves. Danglin’ over the water. Starin’ at me with their giant eyeballs. Probably thinkin’ I’m one of ‘em. With my big round blue circles over my eyes. They flutter and land on Logan’s finger as she holds it out to them. Sittin’ there. Spreadin’ their wings. Remain still. Before dancin’ through the sky with the grace of a fallin’ leaf.
The bark of the trees squirm. Until I realize it’s not the bark. It’s a fuckin’ caterpillar. Mounts his feet on the side. Dangles his head in the air as he hangs upside down. Some type of daredevil. Bendin’ backwards like Iggy Pop. Probably a hundred feet in the air. Or what must seem like a hundred feet in ratio to his long slender body. Not a care in the world. Head empty. Just woke up today and decided to climb to the top of the tree. For no reason at all. Just cause he can.
Now I don’t know shit about dragonflies or how they dance. Caterpillars and their motivations to climb trees. Do the little buggers even bite or sting or anything? Don’t know if the frogs naturally look like the sand. Or if that’s actually stand stuck to them. Same way the rocks stick to the shriveled bark of my pruned fingers. After all the liquid life exits. Kinda makes you think everyone’s right. Maybe you should drink more than one cup of water a month. I especially don’t know shit about the clams stickin’ their tongues out without a care if you think it’s rude or fuckin’ hilarious. I thought that was only the shit you see in the ocean. Or Spongebob for christ’s sake.
Patti Smith said “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine.” But that’s a different song. Right now I’m thinkin’ about “Pissing in a River.” Don’t really gotta piss. Kinda gotta take a shit. Acid always gives me the shits. What about you? I don’t wanna get outta the water though. Just let me think. Let me float. Let me sink. Let me drown in my own meltin’ brain. They say your brain on drugs looks like a tortilla chip. With a Kraft single melted over it. But I don’t know man. The last acid I had was kinda weak. And I’ve been savin’ this gummy Smurf drowned in liquid acid years ago for just the right occasion. And this seemed like the perfect time.
I mean. Shit. I’m layin’ in a river. In the middle of Nowhere, U.S.A. Sounds of a band playin’ a typical 94.7 tracklist echoes in the distance. Gunshots fire. Planes racin’ overhead. ATVs rev through the wildlife tryin’ to grow. How can anyone live out here and still choose to be a fuckin’ republican? And now they’re tryin’ to steal the values of us burnouts. Now that the good ol’ boys said it’s ok to toke. The band plays a yee-hawed version of “Be My Lover.” As if they know anything about the nightmare Alice Cooper was tryin’ to show. Not that it matters anymore. He ended up sellin’ out to the libertarians anyways. I mean shit. The landlord of the RV we got on AirBnB is even growin’ a weed plant behind it. But won’t provide a reliable AC. Everyone talks about how today is like 1984 when we should be lookin’ at the Grapes of Wrath. And Patti Smith is singin’ in my head over all the fuzz. And static. And tinnitus. And all the conservative hell sounds. Can you all please shut the fuck up?! I’m tryin’ to think of the words to describe all this.
I’m sure ya know what I mean when I say I’m just a twenty somethin’ year old. Trippin’ in the woods. Tryin’ to find the right words for how I feel. For how a lotta of us feel today. But I get caught up in this idea that we need to be creatin’ a cohesive and coherent script of our inner dialogues for all the things society tells us we shouldn’t be sayin’ to each other. We need novels. And albums. Not acid laced thought loops as we drown in the stream of consciousness. But why? Bob Ross said the joy of painting was letting your thoughts wander. Was he not better than Picasso? When have our thoughts ever been coherent in the first place?
Tryin’ to come up with some hip reference to someone else that described how we all feel. Like LSD and the Search for God. Or fuckin’ “Pissing in a River.” I know I’m not sayin’ anything new. Which is why I’m thinkin’ so hard on how to say it. Cause haven’t we all read the Stranger. Or at least listened to “Killing an Arab” by the Cure. I mean. I’m tryin’ to come up with the perfect metaphor for the feeling we all have. Isn’t that how we define how cool someone is? How incoherently accurate they can describe the natural world?
My stomach bubbles. Frogs bubble on the banks. Clams blep out water bubbles with sand as the snails bury their shells in the Earth. Plant my feet in the ground as I sink. Tryin’ to bury myself while I still have my face the prettiest it will ever look. And that’s not very pretty. Patti Smith said we should just piss in the river. Maybe I should just shit right here. But as much as I love the natural world, I’m a sucker for the comfort of modern plumbing. And Charmin. Ultra-soft. Or at least the Aldi knock off version. Even in the middle of the woods. Nobody able to hear me over the sound of Bible thumpers firin’ their guns in the air as a challenge to god’s will. I’m still too self-conscious to shit in the wilderness. But it’s not like the RV has real plumbing in it anyways. In case you couldn’t tell by the smell when you got in.
It’s funny. Campin’ in an RV is like sayin’ “I wanna go outside. But when I’m outside, I still wanna be inside.” And the only reason we’re able to afford to live outside. Just for the weekend. Is because some upper class white dude posted this spot on AirBnB. You can’t do anything for free in late stage capitalism. Can’t see a clam stick it’s tongue out at you. Even if they can’t see if you’re lookin’ or not. Caterpillars hangin’ in the open air from trees. Just for the fuck of it. Can’t even see not bein’ able to see the frog’s camo. Or the dragonflies dance like fairies around the angel you’ve fallen in love with. For fuck’s sake. It’s either risk a week’s pay and shell out some dough to get out in the real world. Or keep throwin’ gutterballs while not a single customer comes into the bowling alley for a cocktail.
“Pissin’ in a river…” Watch the water rise over my body as I sink. Gotta cool off. Let me think. Can someone please shut that fuckin’ plane off overhead?! I’m tryin’ to think. As my stomach bubbles. With all the chemicals in the food now, my shit would probably be a biohazard to the ecosystem. Which just reminds me that it seems like we’ve missed the point. Like I said. I don’t know shit about dragonflies or fairies. Clams or Spongebob Squarepants. Caterpillars and acid freaks. But what I do know is that it seems like we just keep gettin’ in their way. I mean. It doesn’t take becomin’ a marine biologist to know every living creature is important to this ecosystem. Even if all the clams do is stick their tongues out at people to freak ‘em out when they’re brain burns like a piece of processed cheese. Yeah. That shit burns if you hold a flame to it. It doesn’t melt unless you nuke it. I’d beg some country that we’ve lied throughout history about bein’ the bad guy to nuke us. But that’s just us missin’ the point and gettin’ in the way of these sustainable ecosystems. And the people that live out here can’t even appreciate the natural world enough to accept things as they are. They gotta read propaganda and build what appears to these critters as UFOs. Just so some shitty band can play a Black Sabbath solo note for note in a field. Next to a semi-truck “Trump 2024. Promises made. Promises kept.”
And when Patti Smith tells you to go natural. Just piss or shit in the fuckin’ river. Like every other livin’ creature. We get this overwhelming burden to find the perfect metaphor for the world around us. Even though none of us make it outta here alive. That’s probably why the frog doesn’t mind if you can see him. The caterpillar doesn’t mind hangin’ from a tree with only two feet. Cause they don’t care about existing. They just wanna do their thing. And coexist. They aren’t cursed to wonder if they’re doin’ enough for the world. The clams know when they blep know that none of this means shit. So there’s no point in bein’ worried. Wasn’t that from the Lion King?
People act like nihilism is so cynical. But when you realize the real world doesn’t give a shit if this means anything. You find the nihilist caterpillars are the true optimist. The anarchist clams that don’t give a fuck if society finds blepin’ at somebody rude or a joke. It took me twenty three years of tryin’ to escape society through booze, blow, clouds of smoke, and liquid acid to realize that anarchism isn’t chaos. It’s a natural law of physics for matter to be unpredictable. So why the fuck are we tryin’ to make societal norms on how we decorate space, time, and the whole damn continuum? Tryin’ to make coherence from chaos. I mean. I’m watchin’ my friends create works of genius in real time. And instead of tellin’ ‘em how much of an honor it is to witness them create. I’m out here worried if they think I’m tryin’ too hard to decipher my own cheesed brain. I’m out here thinkin’ more about what my gender is. And still lettin’ my fears dictate the norms I follow. But disagree with on a moral life. When all I gotta do is talk to ‘em and tell ‘em how I feel instead of tryin’ to figure out how to say it in some haiku riddle. They say don’t do anything the person in front of you understands. When what I should be doin’ is tellin’ my girlfriend that I’m mental for her. We have the overwhelmin' burden to express ourselves. While bein' told we shouldn't be vulnerable. Twenty three. Got my own place. Well. Rent my own place. And I still don’t know how to tell my grandma I smoke cigs. Or my mom that I’m trippin’ balls right now.
My stomach bubbles. Brain swirls with the flow of the creek. Gunshots and jet engines in the distance. Stop it! Stop it! I don’t like it. I just wanna sit in this river. And come up with the perfect way to describe how I feel. How a lotta us feel. About the overwhelming burden of existence we’ve created for ourselves when we don’t do shit besides get in the way of the natural world. Patti Smith tells me to piss in the river. But I’m too self-conscious about it when we can’t even work together as a human race to provide equitable plumbing across the globe.
Run for the RV. Don’t know if I’m runnin’ for my notepad. Even though I’m too self-conscious to share my meaningless thoughts with the people that mean the world to me. Or the fuckin’ shitter. Stomach bubbles like the jet airplanes. Asshole sounds off like the guns in the distance. I gotta stop thinkin’ so much. About shit and piss. Nothin’ and everything. I just gotta vibe man. Like the fuckin’ clams. And caterpillars. And dragonflies. Cause as I nearly shit my pants through ego death in the woods. I realize. That is the perfect metaphor for how we all feel. Don’t think so hard about it. Just let it come natural. And fuckin’ vibe. And if you shit your pants in the river. It’s not like it means anything at all.