reverberations

november brought my voice for the first time
something written on a cold day while waiting for the bus and then later read into a recorder with deliberation – without thought to recompense
numb fingers gripping a pen
to save those words that just wouldn’t stop
like the smile
from listening to his song
the way every note taught different pieces of my body yet undiscovered words for combustion
captured onto any stray scrap of paper to be found
the margins of a bus schedule

maybe he never knew that what it really meant
was that i’d never recover from the moment
that deep inhalation of breath in a space between chords
maybe he never knew that i wouldn’t stop listening

something happens in the span of time between making music and hearing music
the laws of space and time that allow one hand striking a chord—even a million miles away—to produce an actual physical response in the body of someone else. touching without touching. these moments when we hear. when we listen long enough.

what he said
from me:

maybe it’s a conversation
two voices saying
i don’t want you to go.
but I have to go
over and over again
until the disjunction reforms
mixing into a unification

and he breathes at just the right spot
when the dissonance between
metal and metal
metal and flesh
culminates
becomes clear
and the separateness returns
the plucking of chords
into words
into sounds that need no other name