The Feeling of Loud

Lillian Axelson

Music so loud you feel a disconnect from your body, that’s the only way I could describe it. ‘Loud’ feels like the wrong word to use though; loud usually feels out of place in a moment, loud shocks your system and calls you to attention, but this is the best version of loud. I can feel in the air, in the ground, in the sea of people screaming along. It’s not loud, it’s a shake-you-to your-very-core kind of perfect.

People shout the lyrics at the top of their lungs. Forcing words into the air only for them to be swept up in the madness. My throat hoarse despite not being able to hear myself. I flail my arms in a haphazard attempt to punch the air with the beat, and I shift from foot to foot in some semblance of dancing.

Nothing feels like mine anymore. The band has captured me. Bass takes the lead for my heart, beat takes hold of my hands, and lyrics twist my tongue. Nothing more than a marionette and yet I’m not sure anything has ever felt more freeing.

Contradicting feelings fight for my attention at every turn. It’s too freeing, it’s not freeing enough; like I’m on just on the cusp of truely flying. There’s someone vaping, I can tell by the puff of smoke that curls its way into the haze of the center; it’s bad for your body, it’s bodily autonomy. People are banging their heads and dancing in the stands, just as wild as if they were on the floor; someone’s gonna get hurt, maybe they’re feeling this too? Lights flash and lasers chase each other across the stadium; it hurts my eyes, it’s magic that I couldn’t possibly look away from. Observation is the only part of me that’s still online. There’s just so… so much to look at. Not in the way that’s overwhelming, this could never be too much. I found my place, one I’ve never had before. With everything feeling so right I want it all at once, I want to feel the screams, see the lights, hear the songs I love. I want everything.

The lights start flickering from red to white, the hidden crowd being given their own spot light for just a moment at a time. In the back, in a little bubble just outside of the sea there’s a flip of fabric. Two bodies rotate in the strobe, a jump and a lift the culprit behind the eye catching movement. Person one is wearing a dress, a shorter one that flows almost in sync with their long hair. Person two is wearing pants but with the same long hair, silhouette spinning as they duck under One’s arm. In barely a moment’s notice, they’re clinging to one another. They spin in a way that’s too calm for the surging rapids around them. One’s arm is around Two’s waist, hand gripping shirt. Two’s hand carefully cupping their cheek, leading a dance far too raw for the experience. They’re flying. I would love to have something like that.

I’ve been where they’ve been. A room full of nothing but energy, a slow intimate dance, holding someone. I sincerely doubt I felt whatever they’re feeling now, but I wish to hell and back I had been able too. A movie moment, one that would feel so important to look back on, because even as a stranger looking in, only able to see their outlines in brief flashes, that’s how the moment felt, important.

Important is the word people often use to describe our relationships with one another. Important to have a relationship with your child. ‘My friendships are important to me’ people commonly say. Romantic love being important goes without saying. Who would the action hero fight for if not for their lover? Why did Orpheus look back? Who wouldn’t want to find their other half?

Feeling love is a different sort of disconnect for me. Not a disconnect from my body, but something that feels like a disconnect from society that feels out of place, wrong. Society as a whole is captured by love, so much pressure to have someone. Growing up with phrases of ‘You’ll understand when you’re older’ or ‘You’ll find someone eventually’. Both of these being phrases related to some sort of undiscussed cultural normality. It’s ‘normal’ to date, it’s ‘normal’ to get married, it’s ‘normal’ to fall in love. Of course that means it’s not ‘normal’ to never do or want these things, that’s the disconnect for me, and it’s anything but perfect. I love my friends. I love my parents, my siblings, my pets. But I don’t love, never have and chances are I never will. The concept of never for something so important to society, something required to be ‘normal’ is scary. It’s scary in the way that people are going to look at me with a lack of understanding. It’s scary in the way that expectations exist that I have no hope of ever meeting. It’s terrifying in the way that I want it, badly. I’ve tried to reach out with sweat-slick hands and grip it tight, only for it to slide between my fingers. A kiss that was nothing more than the press of lips. Holding a hand where all I could think about was the way our arm lengths didn’t quite match up and made it uncomfortable.

One and Two were lucky in the sense that they chose to have what it felt like everyone else also got the chance to have. They had a tangible love here at this moment. Tangled in each other, skirting the sea, letting the music control them in a way completely alien to the way it controlled me. They had them, and I had me. We all belonged here in different ways, so they could have theirs, and I could have mine.

A familiar chorus reignites my attention like a siren’s song, beckoning me to join in. A scream along with renewed purpose. Rocking my body and shifting my feet I move in some semblance of a dance. I may not have another hand in mine, but my puppet strings are in my grasp and the beat is my lead. I have what I need.

The flashing halted abruptly, the crowd now hidden from view, like a flock of birds ready to soar. One and two are hidden right along with them. The ear splitting screech of an electric guitar fills air and the audience erupts in applause.

Old Dogs

Quinlan Wedge

My dog’s nose, speckled and peeling, pops up over the top of my book, and the pages crinkle under her wet snout.

She sneezes in my face, droplets sprinkling over the words I’ve been reading.

My partner’s dog pants close, her breath hot and fishy, and I wince and almost turn away.

But I hold their stinky, patchy, whitewhiskered faces and kiss their foreheads and hope someone will still kiss me when I am old and gross.