November 8, 2026

Kurt Cobain was my one and only celebrity crush, unless you count Joey from New Kids on the Block, which teenage me would insist you shouldn't. 

I was infatuated with Kurt, I was always singing his songs at the top of my lungs, imagining some were about me. A friend from high school had an almost exact replica of one of Kurt's famous everyday sweaters, he even kinda looked like Cobain, but he was dating my best friend. I had the converse, old, ripped up and repaired with duct tape, written on for a thousand years. 

When Kurt died, I was devastated. I blamed his girlfriend, the world and everyone around him for not saving such an amazing guy. I wrote a poem about these feelings while tears were streaming down my face. I held the paper so tight, looking up towards the sky and wondering why.

Not too long after his death, on a routine mall hang out sesh, what did I find but a plain white tee with the death certificate of he. My Mom was not impressed. 

Kurt stood for all the times I was hurting so badly, when it felt like glass was ripping right through my skin and when I tried to reach out to my parents for love but I was met with annoyance instead. 

“Pipe down.” 

“Swallow your fears.”

“Cant you just disappear.”

I know it sounds dramatic, but is it? If Kurt was singing about these very things and he went “viral,” back in his day, could we imagine that maybe he had something really important to say?

I know I wasn't alone. I was surrounded by kids who were defiant, who were searching for love, who were so scared and lonely. There was no specific “group” of kids, it was all of us back then, we were so lost and forgotten, told we were sinners! And yes! We were all pumping ourselves full of drugs trying to numb. 

But when Kurt began to sing about the very things that plagued us, calling out the dysfunctional people, groups and institutions, our hearts began to sing. We started to dress like him, follow him and treat him like a king.

It's like, we finally had a voice that no one could silence and we were turning that shit up!

“Rape me, do it and do it again. Rape me, Rape me, Rape me”

I don't know about you but if my teenage daughter was blaring that song in her room I’d ask why, not tell her to be quiet. 

I am not sure what it was like growing up in any other era but my own and where I came from, defiance was breeding like it had found a home. And after all these years, looking back now I don't have to wonder… 

Why I loved Kurt so much?

I loved him because he gave me a voice that I could not have on my own. 

Kurt Cobain was the first person who I felt seen by, and we never met. Myself, him and millions of others had a shared experience of a consumeristic society that has forgotten how to love. A world that has stepped on our back to get higher and then sucked the rest of our lives dry.

I used to think Kurt was singing for me. Now I realize he was singing for all of us. And maybe that's the thing about being seen: sometimes it only takes one person brave enough to say what everyone else is afraid to say to change the world. 

This series is for Kurt. Because I am here, because I see you and because I am still going.