Dorm Music (by Veronica McDonald)

I like music, but I don’t like music, at least, not the way he likes music
where he doesn’t just buy a CD or a few song mp3s but goes
and discovers the vinyl in garage sales and in that record dive alive
with dust and incense choking your lungs in gray gusts
and not just one record (as I call it) but all the records of all the albums
that paint the character of his soul like the graffiti album-art on his walls
plastered like markers, like badges, like signposts
telling me, telling everyone, that he not only likes this music, guy
he is it, he lives it, the music is in him, in his body, racing through his mind
like electricity sparking between his neurons
and flying out his fingers holding that paper cigarette
and in his hips like I’m one jive turkey

and he tells me that no one talks like that anymore
and looks at me with eyes that dare me, DARE me to tell him
what bands I like, what singer-songwriters I like, what albums I own
that only those who like the music would know about
and which ones, exactly, do I have pasted on my wall?—
like paint, like permanence, that can one day be covered up
but never forgotten, never erased because that music lives in your soul, man
breathes in what you were and spits out the you
you always wanted to be, and always knew you were deep down
because the music gets it
and he can’t live without it, can’t exist without it
it is part of him in a deep down place that cannot be touched
and if I name something too tame, too shallow, too Pop, too something-not-worthy
it’ll be that band, that music, that defines my core to him
defines my status, my socio-intelligence, my cool-cat strut or stray from real depth

but I don’t fall for the trap (at least not all the way)
and I tell him I don’t much like the Beatles
mostly because everyone else does
and because Charlie Manson did —
called them prophets, the locusts of Revelation
(men faces, women’s hair, the sound of many wings like guitar strings, etc.) —
and because I don’t much like John Lennon
mostly because he loved Aleister Crowley (Do what thou wilt)
and I love Jesus (Do unto others)
and I wasn’t alive in the sixties
so I guess there may have been some
culture coolness
or righteousness
or brotherhood
of the time that I just don’t get and won’t ever get

and he looks at me with eyes glazed in music-glow
and says, who the hell cares about the Beatles?
and I say, I think a lot of people do, I guess
at least, I still hear their songs on the radio
and he puts the cigarette out in a Keystone can
and says, who the hell listens to the radio anymore?
and I can’t answer him, but I’m glad that the subject’s finally changed
and he’s forgotten, or doesn’t know, that I don’t much like music
at least not the way he likes music
and that I’m trying, just trying, to let go
and let the music that’s in me run out
like old bathwater, tepid, dirty
so that I can be clean again, pure again
without his smoke under my skin
without his music-baggage drumming hard
like Ringo on my heart.

Photo credit: “Fifth Angel and locusts” from the British Library (Public Domain).