you don’t get thick skin without getting burnt

rab day is here again

listen to me. you cannot let them take all of it.

there's a part of you that has realized what's going on. a part that sees what these kids are. that sees yourself reflected in them, in crowds of 12. in crowds of 12,000.

they're desperate, like you are. but they can't do what you can do.

you tell them to find their own words. you beg. but they like yours better.

they like how it sounds when you scream. when you flail. when your back cracks after long hours hunched over an ailing keyboard, after endless days in the van.

you like it too. the exaltation. the release. your mother asks if you're okay and you say sure, yeah, why do you think i'm doing this, can't you see it's this or nothing, its this or the end, it's this or-

you don't say any of that.

i'm fine, mom. love you, mom. [i'm sorry i'm gone all the time,]

you hold a gun up to your head, and the gun is a microphone. the gun is a ukulele, the gun is, without any trace of irony, your hand.

you ask a question, and it's the question you've been asking your whole life maybe (and did you first doubt at nine years old? or was that made up? as fictional as your best friend saving you, right? so not fake at all?)

and he(?) doesn't answer. and He doesn't answer. and you don't know His face.

you barely know your own.

this is on purpose.

there's something there, about the masks.

something you really, really can't get in to.

[for the first few songs. for big shows. for small shows too]

when you ask him to wear the mask (him, not Him, but there's not much of a difference these days) he's scared.

lights up, hands out, and he takes it. because you asked. because every time you've asked, he's said yes

quit your job, hey, join my emo band, hey, traipse across state lines and convenience store lines and the lines between my eyebrows, smooth them out, come on this long, long ride with me

well, yes. every heart needs a beat. thank God(?) you chose mine.

you can't find God in a drum kit.

that's stupid.

you can't find Him in a piano shell either.

but then it's like.

you make eye contact with him (not fucking Him) across the breadth of a twitching crowd.

and then across the threshold of your house.

and then the backseat of a van.

and then a tiny stage. and then a bigger one. and then a bigger one.

and it's been fifteen years, hasn't it.

fifteen years of masks on, masks off, it doesn't matter, he always sees you.

fifteen years of worlds you created together before anyone really cared. fifteen years of finding holy places that didn't involve Him (not him) at all.

they're still watching you.

they're still asking for more.

you've got it though, right. you've built a life, and he's right there with you, building his own,

and you're wrapping them together, all these beautiful things, limbs locked like two tired boys on a mattress in the back of a van, jostling together with the bumps in the road, and it'll be your turn to drive soon, it'll be your turn to grow up, you've got fifteen years ahead of you,

but for now.

for now.

there's stars outside the window. glinting and refracting through the prayer-thin ice layer your breath has left in the midwestern midnight chill.

the radio is off (not stolen, it's never death-quiet, never lonely and vile, not now that he's here)

and you press back

and he holds

and He holds

me: yeah whatever

five minutes later: dude i swear they were fucking in that van