matt pond PA

July 26, 2018

Primitive Patterns 1.

The first songs appeared out of quiet teenage squalls on the coast of Newport, Rhode Island. I had run away from home to live with my girlfriend and her parents. Her mother hated me and my asymmetrical haircut. I was washing dishes at a rundown resort near First Beach. I became a master of the Hobart machine. The servers fed me beer and cigarettes as our whirlwind shifts would slow, grinding down to an inebriated, humid ending. I was disappointed by my inability to get addicted to cigarettes. They made me feel sick to my stomach, dizzy, full of dread. I couldn’t hold a Camel Light comfortably, it looked wrong in my fingers, diffident and drooping in my mouth. Even after practicing in the mirror, I never got it right. An undiscovered moviestar without any gravitas, empty of even make-believe emptiness. At weddings and around European wanderers, I have temporarily tried to renew the habit that never was. I puff, cough, spit. I realize the most real facts about myself as I recall the alleys where I made the least sense: I remain the worst cigarette smoker in the world.

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