Frayed Jeans, Flannel Shirts

By Sam Watermeier

MTV Music Awards,
1992.
Nirvana plays “Lithium,”

an opiate for the audience. 

Frayed jeans, flannel shirts,

flailing angst, overcast skies. 

One with the Seattle sun. 

Kurt Cobain’s chords rumble,

like rolling thunder. 

“I like it,
I’m not gonna crack.”

But that’s what grunge is

— cracking,

a seismic shift,

music that says,

“I’m so ugly,

but that’s OK

’cause so are you.”

Stringy hair, sooty shirts,

raw nerves ripped like jeans.

Grunge brings out the lepers,

lets them drain their wounds,

makes them say,

“Here we are now,

entertain us.”

About the Writer: Ever since his mother went into labor with him in a movie theater, Sam Watermeier has been growing as a film fanatic, journalism junkie, literature lover and music maven. For several years, he served as an arts and entertainment reporter for the Indianapolis publication, NUVO Newsweekly, and his writing has appeared in other print and online journals, including The Film Yap, Midwest Film Journal, THiNK Magazine and The Polk Street Review. He lives in Broad Ripple, Indiana with the lovely Jenn Marie, the co-founder of In Verse. They have five fur babies at home.