I don’t feel you anymore

Numb to spine shaking vibratos

Your crescendos don’t stretch my rib cage like they used to

 

My dearest piano, you were the only friend that never stopped listening

Kisses on my cortex still linger years later

And the hairs on my neck dance like meadows in the wind to the frequency of middle C

 

I remember my fingers stumbling across that note

It felt like walking into a world with no bounds and I just took my first steps

I said my name, you said you could be there whenever I needed you

 

I promised I’d hold on to you like lungs do air but nowadays I always find myself short of breath

I see you suffering from stiffening sustain pedals

hammers and strings unfamiliar to each other like the eyes of blind lovers

Now the only thing touching those keys is dust

 

I just don’t have the time

These back to back deadlines, and ridiculous meeting times

Feel like a pen etched into every wrinkle in my brain: true beauty doesn’t fit here

 

On top of that I’ve got parents reiterating “stick to what will put food on the table
invest in activities that will get the bills paid
that’s what you need”

But they didn’t know about you

They never knew how much I craved your voice
never heard the synchronized gears turning in our chest
they sounded like eighth notes

 

Teach me how to breathe again

Envelope me with reverb to flush the stress from my muscles
bring me chimes echoing in spring breeze and waves whispering to empty shores in the fall
return my ability to predict the next movement in the symphony car alarms play during the night

I want every pulse of my eardrum to light up my life like distant ice cream truck jingles on a hot summer Sunday

 

You used to be my therapist

I’d stay up late at night and let my fingers confess to you secrets I kept from friends and family

I shouted 5th octave trills when I got my first second and third kiss all at once

And cried F# minor 9th chords when that same girl showed me I was nothing more than a short-term memory

 

I remember we ventured deep inside the hole my dead cousin was laid in

With nightsticks bringing his lungs to a full rest

I shut my eyes and ears to the news as if the feeling of pain was limited to the 5 senses

 

Hiding my emotions from anyone with a foreign pulse I spent every night after that trying to find the keys that spelled “bring him back” and nothing sounded right
my 15 year old fingers didn’t know how to play murder
 

I thought you betrayed me
I kept hearing you say that the gears in my chest were spinning alone
that no matter what I wasn’t bringing Aaron passed his last measures

 

I needed him and you weren’t there for me
and I waited for his voice to grace my ears again and yours was still silent
and I wanted to take that cold rock you called a heart and erode it with my tears until you had nothing left so we’d be back in synch again
 

And ever since then I kept you on the outside with everyone else

Telling myself that the only person who can relate to me is me

I don’t need anyone else

I can’t need anyone else
 

But I’m relearning how to sing in key

I want to feel our unity again

It’s been too long since I’ve heard what living sounds like