for Marisa!

All-Girl Post-Punk Electro-Pop vs. Screamo

Then you knew what to expect on a Friday night – everyone dancing in the living room, some on the coffee table singing Daft Punk in Spanish, other short girls in silvery skirts and kitten heels, the string of Hello Kitty lights striking everyone as normal, Cynthia falling asleep in the bathroom and pushing Jessica in through the window to wake her, Jorge and Nicole lying laughing atop the broken wood slats of what was once the aqua colored patio bench, a fight at the stereo over the next song because the girl with the neck tattoo doesn’t like Le Tigre, the neighbor’s pit bull breaking its chain and tearing through the party, falling asleep on the floor in rows with the music still playing, and in the morning walking home between rows of palm trees, the sun on the water, everyone on skateboards or beach cruisers and five barefooted boys balancing an inflatable canoe in the air running towards the beach as you are on your way to a breakfast burrito and a long nap so by nighttime, you are ready to do it all again.

Now it could be anything - wearing a coat over a dress over a shirt over leggings over wool socks over more, a party in a neighborhood with no street lights and boarded up apartments, a screaming band, latch key kids and the smell of day old vegetable soup, rickety elevators covered in graffiti like the old warehouse, a broken locket found resting on the keys of a broken piano someone begins to play and tells you, “I know Moonlight Sonata,” but it sounds more like Dracula’s theme song, a mile long line for the bathroom that has no ceiling and is missing a wall, and during your turn a girl in line with neon fishnet stalkings yells, “Hey, are you pissing on the floor in there?” because your roommate’s date from the internet is puking loudly nearby, a girl with a plastic knife pretends to slit everyone’s throats, and when you come home the boy from the internet pukes some more in your downstairs toilet while you fall asleep on the couch watching your favorite show about the dramatic lives of teenagers living on the beach in California.