When people ask me why I am in here, or how I ended up in here, or something in that vein, I have to bite my tongue. The notion that one simple answer is the simple answer you want to hear, is mathematically improbable and simply ludicrous. But it is what you want. Its what they want. Ok.

One of the exercises the doctors taught me is to connect memories. Things in the past that felt the same, and see if I can find common threads. Maybe a comfort food, or a trigger on the opposite spectrum. This is what I tell them, maybe it is what I should tell you, because I think, deep down, you are asking the same question.

When I was very young, six or seven, I lived in a big brown house with my parents. My room sat atop the castle (just to my eyes of course, a slightly larger than average house to most).

I'm sitting on the ground, the light from the glass refracts itself across my bare feet. Red runs up my legs, and blue down my foot. Light is everywhere in the room, as if the cracks in the window were stains. For a brief second, as I stand, the broken light falls around me and I am a peacock.

I'm walking. The cracks criss-cross the pane, radiating from the single hole. I don't, and didn't, know where this hole came from. Standing at the window; sticking my finger in the hole; pausing. Running my finger along the shards. I begin to bleed, I begin to cry. I never know why.

Blood is flowing. Tears are flowing. Red runs down my hand, Blue runs down my face. Fluids are everywhere on me, as if the clothes on my body was a drain. For a brief second, as I yell, the world falls around me, and I am not a kid.

The summer before junior year, I'm peddling hard as we race down the hill. Her weight isn't much and mine is far less, but combined we have a formidable and foreboding mass. We are flying downhill, fast. I'm sweating. Her thighs are tightly gripped around me, her feet firmly planted on the pegs, her hands in the air as she cries out in laughter and joy. We are passing cars, we are passing the passage of passing time.

Cyrus comes screaming up next to us, pacing us well. He throws his hands up and starts shooting roman candles from each hand, no hands on the handle bars. He is going to fast. His front wheel wobbles and it is all over. His bike goes flying out from under him and he falls face first onto the concrete. As he falls I take a roman candle blast to the face. The bike careens to the left. She is gone.

I am alone and on fire.

Two years ago, the night that put me in here for good, I see all five naked eye planets. Mars is the brightest, with distant Jupiter (king of the solar system) up and to the left. Mercury is left and high, Venus crosses neatly over the horizon. I'm Marveling as the waves crash and the fire climbs.

People behind me, also facing the water, let their conversations blend into one. My hood is pulled up over my baseball cap, and I'm turning sharply. I'm sprinting towards the street that runs parallel to the beach. I'm not yet sure if they have noticed the gun. Even though it is dark I know a keen eye can still spot danger. That is why evolution exits.

I'm in the street facing head on traffic. People are screaming, I'm smiling, this is going to be great. I lift the gun and point it at the car's windshield, the driver is running in terror towards the water. I pull the trigger and hear the gas release. The screaming subsides into booing as the paintball hits the cars windshield.

A few tough guys from the bar are running at me as someone calls the police. I'm laughing hysterically as I put that barrel in my mouth and pull the trigger. The blast knocks me on my ass, and hurt. I'm still laughing. The guys pick me up and hold me up as I spit down myself. The blue paint and red blood are now forming a purple paste. No one is quite sure what to do, or how to react. I'm laughing.

In a few minutes I'm being hand cuffed. The police roll up my cuffs and look at the top of my wrist. In reference to the five X's I carved onto my forearm, the officer asks, "What are these?"

I spit through purple paste and laughter, "The naked eye planets."

Today all the doctors and orderlies will ask me if I feel good. I'll tell them no. They will ask why and I will say because they wont let me leave. They will then continue to not let me leave until they like my answer better.

I tell them these memories connect and they get a worried look on their face, and we both know I'm not leaving for a while.

And still every week I have to answer the same question from some new relative out of the woodwork, "Why?"

They want the simple answer. I don't have it. I have the truth.

We spend hours throughout the week scouting. Any little clear wall or fixture is a perfect target. Dumpsters are low brow, thats weak. We are above that. Bridges are good spots, but high value real estate, you have to be emotionally ready for piece to get covered. Sometimes if you get lucky you can hit train or a semi truck but you have to find it when the driver isn't around. See walls don't have drivers, and are usually pretty open.

We had just hit a bridge last weekend. Big concrete one over some popular walking trails. We bombed it with glitter and pink, some faces and our slogans.

There were three of us. We always went by tag names, never use your real name while your painting. Mouse had a real straight line style. The “O” was square, and so were all edges. It always takes him a minute to throw anything up but once it is up, it looks great. When he had a lot of space he would do some great geometric stuff, sometimes write “Open your mind, do the math.”

Fart was new. See Fart is along the lines of everyones first name. For whatever reason you usually don't stick with your first tag. Mouse had gotten caught when he was Rat, and I just grew out of Weed and moved to my current one. Fart thought Fart was funny so he was going with it. Really it is stupid, but he will realize that as he grows as an artist. He was still learning but was able to have a pretty nice tag that was supposed to look like clouds. It kind of worked.

I was going by Buzz at the time. My M.O. was that I was willing to tag over smaller tags. I know it seems rude, but this game is competitive and fluid. To be fair I usually look for unfinished, bad, or gang tags. Stuff I don't think is good enough to have a full display. I swoop in and take what others left behind, like a buzzard, thus Buzz. My other thing was to put glitter around my bubble letter tag to make it look like an explosion. Thats why my slogan was, “Tiny Explosions”.

Mouse and I had been tagging together for months now. We had picked up Fart a few weeks ago. It was safer to tag in groups. First of all, just company is nice, but secondly you could have someone on lookout while someone else tags. Then switch. You get more place scouted before hand too.

We fancied ourselves a crew. A lot of true tagging happens from gangs, which was really what we weren’t. We considered ourselves artists, not vandals. Although the law probably didn’t argue, but part of our beliefs was disregard of authority.

This spot had been being scouted for weeks. It was a strip of abandoned buildings ready to be torn down to build condos. Some other popular crews had come through but 1) I’m the buzzard & 2) there was still a bunch of space. So we came in friday night/saturday morning at 3:00am.

I stood guard while Fart and Mouse hit it first. Fart was going to rush through his work, and Mouse was going to take way too much time. I smoked a cigarette as a kept an ear out for footsteps and an eye out for people and cars. There were none my entire time guarding. I rubbed my hands on my black and red flannel painting jacket. It was caked with nicotine and paint. It smelt awful, like evidence.

In a few minutes Fart came over. “Alright I hit it. Lets see what the Buzzard can do.” Fart was always trying to use lingo and slang but often came off awkward. I tagged out and went and found a fairly clear wall.

I slipped a paint pen out of my sleeve and did some basic Buzz tags, bubble letters with the “B” and “Z”’s in the foreground and the “U” coming out from the back. I came in with some glitter spray and gave all of them a pulse. I decided I wanted to do a “Tiny Explosions” piece so I went to go find a new wall.

There was a fairly good sized wall over by where Mouse was. I set my backpack on the ground and started looking for a good can. In the dim light of the moon I looked at the example images on the wrapper to see what color they were. I found the one that had the pink dollhouse. I smiled a sort of sad smile.

A few weeks before, for the first time in my life, I had used this very can of spray paint for the task on the wrapper. My older brother’s daughter had been into pink for a while, so for her birthday I painted her dollhouse pink. Now here I was. I dont know if it was guilt, but it felt wrong. I always justified the tagging as art, but knowing what I had bought this paint for, this felt wrong.

I heard footsteps so I quickly slid the can into the bag, zipped it, and turned to the sound. It was just Mouse coming over to see what I was doing. I had known Mouse for years, and our relationship had changed. Before we became street artist we hit every other brand of scum bag.

I remember once Mouse and I were in an alley way down town. Mouse was on the ground already when I took the same rag he had used, sprayed the rest of the can of spray paint onto it, pulled it up to my mouth, huffed hard. The familiar rush hit me hard and immediatly, and I found myself on the ground too. The high only lasted for maybe a minute, but it was amazing. This particular day though I started coughing. I coughed up blood, and lots of it. The same flannel jacket I was wearing tagging, was getting covered.

As Mouse approached me towards the end of my memory I looked down at my jacket and saw the blood stains. I looked back up at Mouse. “Why do you do street art?”

“Well.” he took a pause, “Don't we all want to leave our mark on this world?”

“But how is Buzz a mark?”

“It just is. Are you going to hit this wall?”

“Yeah.” I turned around sprayed a big pink Buzz tag, put some green pulse off it, and a huge green and pink sickly face surround by glitter with my signature speech bubble, “Tiny Explosions.” and as I finished the last “S” I tried to find the real meaning, my real mark. I came up empty. “Thats it. I’m done for the night.”

We walked back towards where Fart was. As we approached we both committed on how Fart must have wandered because he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. We walked down a bit more, but Fart was gone. We started looking frantically, and terrified. Mouse pulled out his phone and called Fart but Fart didn’t answer.

“What should we do?” Mouse asked me.

It had been almost half an hour since we had concluded Fart was gone. “Fuck it. Lets go home.”

“What about Fart?”

I shook my head, “Fuck it.” and we went home. I never talked to Fart after that night. I guess Mouse had caught up with him a few days later and found out what happened, but I didn’t really talk to Mouse either. Something in me had told me it was time to stop, so I didn’t do much tagging after that.

Yesterday I walked by those buildings, still not torn down. I saw both of the piece I did that night. They both were ninety percent covered. See Buzz would have known to go revive his piece, but it occurred to me that I am not Buzz anymore. I kept walking home.

Right now I am watching my niece put her dolls in her dollhouse, and right now I’m watching her dad play with her. It is a nice paint job. The pink is vibrant, and not at all covered.

I still think about what Mouse had said about leaving your mark on the world, but Mouse, Buzz, Fart, Rat, Weed, anyone who tags really, is doing it in probably the most short term way. The real marks are on people.

We sat on the edge of the universe

In star lit Anaheim

Hating the county

Having a horrible time

Exhausted and lonely, I grabbed your hip

And in a passing moment of weakness

We kissed

I laid in bed that night shaking

Dreading the thought of waking

Guilt ridden heart a thudding bass drum

Afraid of the shit show to come

A soft skin sin under socal summer stars

Somethings decompressing

When we were undressing

But no ever gave out cigars

When you just give in to it

Youre never going to win for shit

Black Butterflies melt down to fears

Tears of joy remain to be tears

I sat outside on her porch

She told me she hated me

I hated myself, but i loved her

Poor decision and bad intuition it was wrong

And in a passing moment of weakness I wrote this song

I cried for weeks on end

My own wounds I had to mend

There was no excuse for my mistake

I hate that I made her heart break

We left through the back door, and went left, rather than the usual right. I tried to start conversations the entire time but it became increasingly clear that Rag had something on his mind. The mid-winter air was cold, and we could see our breathe. Mine grew more and more frequent as I spoke, but Rag’s remained slow. He was slow, and sluggish. That wasn't like him. Rag was quick.

About halfway to the view point we reached a bridge. It was a bridge I had seen and crossed countless times before. One sides, a string of house and the hill down the view point, the other the neighborhood center of West Seattle. Under the bridge was a road that in the gorge it ran looked more like a concrete river. The fall was long down to the bottom.

About halfway on the bridge, Rag stopped. I called out, ‘Rag?’

He looked at me. he put his hand on the railing that ran the right side of the bridge. He put his other hand on and pushed up, pulling himself onto the ledge. His feet found their way on and he stood. His back towards me, face out over the gorge.

‘Rag! Get down you will hurt yourself!’

He looked slightly back at me, ‘Do you ever think about doing it? Killing yourself?’

‘No. I don’t.’ I lied

‘I do. All the time. It sounds kind of nice. Just a complete freedom from everything. From life, and from un-wanted death. A freedom from addiction, and a freedom from the past. Freedom from desire, and place and everything shitty about the world.’

‘It’s also freedom from everything good in the world.’

‘Name on good thing about the world.’ He left me speechless. ‘What if I did it? Right now? What would happen?’

‘Rag please get down! I need you! The world needs you!’

‘No. Neither of those things are true.’

He wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t want this. ‘Rag please don’t do this! What about Chris, or your mom!?’

‘I just don’t like it. I don’t like not being in control. I feel trapped.' he breathed. 'I want to know freedom.' He paused. 'One day you will all know freedom.’ And with that he let himself slide off. It wasn’t graceful. His foot kicked out, and he feel face first, hitting his head on the way down. I screamed out in agony as I watched his body fall. I had stopped by the time I heard, and saw it hit the ground with a grotesque bloody slap.

A car had slammed to a halt when he jumped, and now the driver was rushing towards me. I buried my head in my knees and started crying. Crying harder than I ever had, or ever would. The driver called nine-one-one and was explaining what he had seen. He requested an ambulance but it was too late. I saw Rag’s brain on the pavement.

Rag was the first person I ever knew to die.

Do you remember the night we drove to Pasco?

We took a wrong turn, ended up in Kennewick.

You told me you would be ok if you never saw mom again, I couldn’t disagree.

I was maybe 13.

You filled the gas tank with 7-11 gas and bought me a Chery Coke.

On the road again you told me about the girl you met on MySpace.

You said you didn’t miss your dad at all, I could see why.

It was maybe 2:00am.

Mom’s test results would be in, in a few hours.

But we were in Pasco, looking at your dads’s head stone.

You said half brother means brother, and I couldn’t disagree,

but I never figured out why you took me.

I couldnt take my eyes off her. She was tall and curvy with long thick black hair. Her red sweater was tight and faltering, like her black jeans.

Starring. I was simply and unapologetically starring when she looked up. Our eyes meet.

My heart was pounding when she stood and walked gracefully, like a goddess through the fog, towards me. She stopped about a step from me and held out her hand.

I wanted the contents of her hand, but I wasn't sure if she was offering until she spoke, "Cookie?"

(Title taken from the They Might Be Giants song S-E-X-X-Y off the album Factory Showrooms)

I first met George in the grimiest club on the west coast, during my only overdose. Word on the street was that his band was set and ready to turn the whole world upside down. As a whole we, that is the people that made up the newly dubbed "punk" scene, were sitting on the cusp of having to hate ourselves. See our whole idea was to fight, with art and activism (but mainly art), against what we didn't believe in, both socially and politically. Socially the main issue was the elitist and discriminatory pseudo-caste system economics and traditional values re-enforced. We, again the "punks" , were right on the edge of enforcing this ourselves. We were dangerously at risk of losing sight of the goal and soul of our movement and instead becoming the waste of potential our parents called us, and having our hair and clothing become a fashion statement instead of a social one. This was something I couldn't stand for, and if George and his band were half the savior they were cracked up to be, this was a man and a band I needed to represent.

1984 was of course Orwell's fabled year of oppression and at this point it didn't seem too far off. Maybe we were wrong but oppression seemed to be knocking, so we wore our leather jackets and jeans to show how uncaring we were, and shaved our heads into mo-hawks, and distorted the guitars, and sometimes, to really prove a point, we didn't clean the bathrooms. This bathroom filth was readily apparent as I brought my face down to sink level.

Now none of this is to say I considered myself a punk, I didn't. I considered myself a producer, but the trick to making money off the punks was to assume the role of one. Maybe I didn't have all the punk beliefs but I needed to have their trust. No I wasn't a punk, but in the fogged mirror of memory it is hard to see where my act ended and actual self deceit, and perhaps even outside conversions began.

At sink level my nostril searched against the splattered porcelain for the neat line of powder I had laid out. One aspect in which I truly was a punk was the drugs. Punks may have loved drugs, but I lived drugs.

One nostril plugged, a sucked hard. Moving my head down the line I felt that wonderful burn in the back of my sinus, and as I finished my line the buzz kicked in. Euphoria was now the name of the game and I was one top of the world.

I bumped the swinging door open with my hip as one hand rubbed under my recently used nostril and the other hand slid a little bag of powder into my pocket. My eyes searched the moshing crowd for a familiar face, for a friend, but not anyone in particular. Quickly though, I remembered the task at hand: getting a client and also saving punk.

I sat down at the table George had agreed to meet me at. The music was loud and angry, the singer really just screaming, the drummer completely out of touch with any sort of time, the kind of stuff the crowd loved and of course the crowd was going apeshit. I tapped my finger on the table, I checked my collar was straight. I didn't dawn the leather simply because even punk business, was business.

I didn't have a wonderful sense of time during the wait but it felt like over fifteen minutes had passed. Not wanting to risk losing my high for the meeting, when nobody was looking I railed another line. I blinked hard as it was hitting me, and on the other side of the blink was George.

"Hello hello." I held out my hand for him to shake.

"What did you think of the set?" He asked sitting down, setting his drink on my table.

"It was amazing!" This was a complete lie. I hadn't noticed the set. I was under the impression that they had not yet played. Could I let him know about the misunderstanding? No. Did it really matter to me? No. "I'm going to cut to the chase, there is no one on the market like you and I want to get you on our label."

"No."

I laughed at what I thought was a joke, further confusing me he laughed too. When the laughter died down I went on with my proposal, "Our offer is simple, we want an album and a US tour then we can talk renewal. You will retain full creative control."

"No."

I started to laugh but he wasn't smiling. "You're serious?"

"Yeah I'm not interested."

"Well we are making a generous offer, we are even letting you keep the controversial name."

"What is controversial about George and the Horse Fuckers?"

"Mainly the 'and the Horse Fuckers' part."

"Is it that?"

"Yeah it is that."

He paused. "Ok I can almost see where you are coming from. Nonetheless I don't want any deal, or anything from you. I also don't want to have wasted your time. A friend of mine gave me a tip that you like to party?" he made a universally understood gesture indicating he meant cocaine, tapping his nostril slightly.

"I do love cocaine, yes."

George pulled out his own bag and poured two large piles of a slightly darker powder on the table. As he thinned them out into lines he explained, "There's just a little heroin in this. Gives it a kick I think."

I didn't care. I snorted it anyway. That is when the overdose began. My memories fade in and out, but the ending is clear.

I ended up behind the club. George was getting head from a prostitute, and I was bragging to the pimp about how much cocaine (and little bit of heroin) I was on.

"So you are cool then?" the pimp asked me.

"Yeah. Yeah I am cool."

"Not one of these punk assholes?"

"No that ain't me."

"You ever smoke rock?"

"Rock?"

And that is when I smoked crack while someone I had just met received oral sex from his prostitute ten feet away.

My heart started racing. I was freaking out. It was too much, I fell to the ground and lost consciousness.

I came to in an ambulance rushing me to the hospital. I looked at George who was standing over me and said the simple truth that was facing us all that night, "Punk is Dead."

When I deemed it late enough to not draw attention to myself I trudged down stairs. It was eight thirty and Mason was just coming out of the bathroom wrapped in towel, as our dad left his room for the first time this morning. For a brief second the three of us all stopped in the hallway, exchanged an awkward glance, and continued on our paths. I didn’t know how my dad’s or Mason’s night had gone and I knew neither of them knew about mine.

I went downstairs and sat at the table. I put my elbows on the table and my face into my palms. The cold air was drifting under the doorway and across the linoleum floor and across my bare feet. I sniffed hard, considering the small possibility that I was getting sick, then let my mind drift. It couldn’t go anywhere.

I heard footsteps coming quickly down the stairs knowing immediately that is was Mason, my dad never traveled fast. Mason, a morning person, bounced all around the kitchen, already fully dressed, to some unrecognizable song he was humming. He turned to me, jug of milk, bowl, and spoon in one hand, box of frosted flakes in the other. He looked at me bizarrely, “Cedro!”

I looked back at him expecting some sort of explanation. He starred back at me, not breaking eye contact. “Cedro?” I asked him.

“Cedro.” He nodded. Sitting to make his cereal.

“Any particular reason?”

“Its Spanish for bug.” He spat through a mouthful of milk and corn.

“Ah.”

He chocked down his breakfast, “You see the guy who named Sedro-Woolley thought there was a lot of bugs, so he named it after bugs and himself. However! Cedro was too Spanish for W.A.S.P.-y settlers so he made it have an S.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because this town is awful, gross, and full of bugs.”

“I’m sorry.”

He tapped his nose, “As well you should be. Look Adam here is the deal…”he held up both his hands to demonstrate swelling, then brushed his hands to the side and shook his head ever so slightly, “You understand?”

“No.”

“I’m glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a fool’s ear.”

“Was that Hamlet?”

“Avocado.”

“I see. Are you pretending to be crazy out of boredom and hatred for this town?”

“You are one smart cookie Adam. How do you stand this place?”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t?”

I went entirely too honest, “What do you want to hear, I’m seeing a therapist two times a week because I can’t sleep through my palpable depression and anxiety.”

“Well don’t hold back.” He said slightly taken aback by my sudden honesty.

“What?”

“What.”

I got frustrated, “You suck Mason.”

“Not for free, or family.” he called back as I went upstairs.