I wrote this a year ago for Dodie Bellamy’s “Sex and Death” class and it has largely remained unchanged. I read a slightly truncated version at Zefyr & I’s Gemini Moon event in February. It’s about Eostre, one of my favorite events of the year, a rave which my friends in Envelope Soundsystem throw to herald Spring. So much has changed in the year since I wrote this. But the scattered feelings I was able to jot down while there, about living and dancing and dying and getting free, the few words I was able to map out while taking breaks from dancing to wander into the forest, the slivers of memory I held onto until the next day, still feel sharp and poignant. I hope to see you in the woods.

You can’t see the dust, just the bass. It’s dark anyways. Thudding loud as rifling through trash cans looking for aluminum. Yr body isn’t even here yet. No space for oh or you left between why and are. Oh, you will leave soon anyways. Forgetting vowels makes space. Leave possessions so that yr body can ask why are we here? Knowing questions’ unyielding weight needs examples or experience before action. Practice the future right now. Why are we waiting?

When you got out of the car, they couldn’t see you along the culvert. Opened the door against yr head. Tan ripple, peanut butter fudge, gunked against the red paint. Now it’s a snack. Caked w lite coverage foundation. Trickle of blood down yr hairline. It’s all red and tan. Skin or blood, stained teeth and sour gums, a crepe w fresh strawberries. That thing you don’t even know how to feel abt anymore. They apologize and sorry sorry sorry. Glasses, yr favorite pair, end up in the murky water. You manage not to crush them. Flick off the puddled ground from the last storm. Before tomorrow’s storm. In between feast & famine, rivers of atmosphere and dry slopes.

A trail lined w glow sticks. Bodies glowing bodies ringed with bodies. You know the djs performing. Lay out a blanket. Kiss cheeks. Watch as yr friends put the finishing touches on an altar. Moons and rabbits, mirrored. Small vials of oily hormones emptied and knelt on a mirror to pray toward tree boughs. Kiss more cheeks. Meet the people who traveled to be here. Its all abt connection. No oh or you there either – think beyond the self as a reason. Track to track to track to track to track. Everyone makes plans. Carries narcan. Measures dosages. Drinks water. Please tell a friend or two when you stumble into the woods to piss against a tree that’s older than four times yr age.

In the middle of a set yr head rolls back. You think abt what this means. What it will take for all of us to get freer than we are now. The lites race. Hotwheels up and down flimsy orange track. Around her head. In between it all there’s a refrain of love. Everyone’s sweat smells ripe. Raspberry fields flood in Salinas. Fruit grows twice its size a month earlier than expected. At least our cheeks stay flushed. Seedless. You think abt the trailer. In between it all there’s a refrain of love. How to Blow Up a Pipeline. How to Blow Up a Statehouse. How to Blow Up This Life. How to Get a 10 Year Old Puberty Blockers, How to Tell Them They Have Time to Decide When the Carbon Carrying Capacity Inches Ever Up, How to Make Sure Every Person You Know Has the Body They Need, How to Burn Every Scrap of Paper Written by Fathers and Executives and Bosses, even the Small Business Owners. Make soap out of the ashes. In between it all there’s a refrain of love.

Amelia Earhart might have been eaten by coconut crabs, but like, it wasn’t malicious. They just saw a source of food. One wanders over near yr trunk. She stomps through the dust, yr thin root networks holding all the ground up. It burns her sinuses. Brings her closer. One day all this dust will be hers. Yr moss will know her too. She’ll kneel in the grove one last time. She waters, watching the lights fade and whimper, grow and crunch. I love this song. It makes them kick the ground high. Dancing on top of history. The soft flesh of her friend’s bodies bouncing against the beat, w the rhythm.