first rave, Williamsburg, Brooklyn 2002

my father didn’t know i went past 50th street
all the way up
to where low red brick warehouses
stored wild things—
they came
the people who wanted to party
fairy folk who cracked glow sticks,
forklifts and pallets
made merry in the blacklight

drums and bass
electronic shamans, our industrial gods
in their shelter
gathered at equipment’s foot—
we witnessed our births
which we never get to do

i’ve not been so liquid like that time
when fusible mineral stuff
shook from walls,
once geologic caves
wet with sweat
a hundred illegal bodies
pounding walls to polish, badlands
not forgotten
but a ruse for real estate

sometimes i can see the strobe lights
flash through the panes of a luxury condo
and a girl covered in glitter
lying to her father

By Tanya Tuzeo

Biography:

Tanya Tuzeo is a librarian and new mother whose work offers heartbreaking yet merciless observations about our most treasured relationships—family and love. Living by the sea, the natural world of grit and liquid imbues her writing with elemental textures and serves as a paradoxical backdrop of beauty as she moves through the uncomfortable, and at times bleak, experiences of motherhood, aging, and human connection.