(I’m not sure why this never published; I apparently wrote it back in August. In light of my recent brain-singing comments, it seems to be time.)
You are carried on song
like winds, inexorable. I might avoid
the radio, but the music
finds me anyway. In commercials,
while at the grocery store. Snips that cling to
synapses and sparks inside my head. Playing
over and over. Bands you listened to, Songs
you loved, sometimes those you never
even heard. Songs that speak
to me of you. Starry, starry nights, the
lights to guide you home, light up your bones,
You shut up and dance, bid hello to darkness, when you’re
lost and alone, and
sinking like a stone, to join the black parade. Lyrics and
drums and guitars and keyboards, they
play nonstop. Nonstop. Non
stop.
Long ago, before you were the ghost always hovering,
never within reach, when it was another ghost
always hovering, never within reach,
it was the same. Music
undid me, and did me up tight. Kept me
sane. Kept the tears coming so I’d not
drown in them, held inside.
Music speaks. For the living, and
the dead, the young and
the old. The happy and the sad. The same words
caught inside ears, wiggling and worming into brains
interpreting every note, every word, to its own
experience.
Modesty Is For Suckers 