We have a problem here, Tim said tossing his coat
over the back of the couch. You seem to think
with exactitude on this matter, more so than I can
Tim said, surveying the empty chairs
with such overwhelming joy and sadness
for this strange instrument that I’m glad
because what we seek whether we admit it or not
is our destruction, or that little bit of doubt that builds character
distanced myself further. When I play, I hear only one note
perhaps this is because I have tuned the piano that way
I hold the piano up to my ears to hear
its chest empty each time I touch it
into the void, what are you going to do about it? I was ruined
onto another course entirely. The piano is a perfect way
I live alone and I’ve shored up my house
with all the things I had lying around.
I raised my hand, but he didn’t call on me
he talked about how, in the future, we’ll all get what we want
to other cupboards. Needless to say, everyone in that house
suffered. Why am I telling you this
as though he were transmitting information over a short distance
when you first told me you didn’t want me to play
in the morning and how I go to sleep at night
knowing that I will be there when I awake. If you sit here
if I told you that something like this was going to occur
just at the moment when I was about to conclude this
as the starting point, or that you’ll no longer have anything
to do with yourself. We need the struggle, Tim said
I’m telling you that this is entirely false. It’s a delusion
something you’ve cooked up. I remember the day
falling through it is always on my mind and the keys
receive this worry with every touch.
Tonight, the piano will project me into a dream
in which I’m on stage. It’s a terrible night for being
we discover what we were composed of. Without first
breaking, Tim said, we can’t be whole
can be threaded outside us into something wonderful
and this is called counterpoint
to go home was a need to return to a previous state
buried beneath years of habit and rationale
even when I was already there there
was a voice inside me
and I thought you were listening. Maybe that job
you keep going to has screwed up something
completely separate and meaningful in its own right
which is to say that whatever is inside us
and hope that it will allow me
the mistakes I know I will make.
To be absorbed, which is what I want — to be absorbed into the world
I’ll play the music that calls to you, that is calling your name
that would justify me sticking my neck into the void
and shouting to the nearest person, Hey, my neck is sticking
but the older I got, the more emphatic the voice became
then I understood. I don’t know how, but I did
in order to have purpose. Sometimes we need to dash
ourselves on the rocks because in the reassembling
the thrashing or burning would rid
the next day of having to decide
in there, Tim said knocking my head with his fist
when I was a child I used to think I wasn’t real
but I thought if I could hear its longing and lilting melody
in one note, I could hear anything
I don’t want to depress you, so let’s just say there’s a method
and leave it at that.