we are the drumbeats carrying the tempo of our lives,

slowing down as the harmonies soar over touching fingertips

and first kisses, the places where time slows to nothing

because the sounds have ceased in a fleeting moment of

closed eyed joy and the pleasant kind of nervous,

speeding up as we watch the years go by in photo albums

filled with the school grey backgrounds and tucked in shirts

and at least one questionable haircut.

we provide the melodies that play through our heads,

through the same streets we have always wandered,

through sleepless nights and early mornings,

the major key that rises in pitch when we meet the people

we will know forever.

we feel the harmonies falling out of key

when our texts go unanswered

and our hearts go unclaimed by the people we offer them to

when we are surrounded by questions without answers and shoes without laces,

there are too many rests and too many key changes,

but its worth it for the crescendos.