Lazarus with Guitar The overdose turned his skin an aqua-green hue, stopped his breathing…It was, remarkably, his first death, and only the earliest of many little deaths that would follow. —Charles R. Cross, Heavier than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain And not until punches to the solar plexus, the blue bite of ice water to the face was he alive, brushing death from his sloped shoulders, torn jeans. How breathing allowed him to pick up his guitar once more, summon a riff from its strings, his voice a blade rasping against the air until his lips banged shut, until he splintered his Fender, raining rosewood. How opium’s black wasp would find his arm cinched, vein plump for the stinger, nod and bliss. Again too much, again his skin turquoise, heart stopped. More cold water and blows to the stomach, frail body lurching back to us to screech into another mic, to strum a guitar bandaged in duct tape a song glittered in feedback. What beautiful racket you made, what lovely clamoring until your hands found a way to quiet the din inside your skull. Noise you could live without. Noise that funneled through these lyrics, this voice bleeding from the radio, resurrected from your throat.