do you have a ghost
song humming in your bones?
fragments of verses
long forgotten still
stuck to you like
the to-do lists on your wall
never finished,
never thrown away
you only heard it
once, a long time ago
between ads and
thrumming static on the radio
you can picture that
day so clearly, but
every time you do
you see a different day,
a different
photograph on your shelf
[
you were in the
backseat with your siblings,
the sky was dark
with snow
]
{
you were driving
with the windows down,
the air smelled
like overturned earth and the colour green
}
(
you were home
alone, dancing in the living room to
the rhythm of
the rain on the roof
)
you never heard its
name
the melody still
runs through your life,
a half-remembered
thread that you cannot let go of –
you wind it round
your fingers and string it through your ribs and
sometimes you think
you might be crazy,
your nervous hands
tapping out the (heart)beat,
afraid to forget
as you watch your
reams of paper,
your rhyming
dictionaries, spilling out to fill
all the singing
rooms in your mind as you
try to piece the
words back together, but none of them fit –
not like they should
in that memory
of a memory
so you haunt the
streets,
asking everyone you
see:
Have you heard a
song that goes like this? no, that's not it -
Like this? but
that's not quite right either.
The lyrics talked
about birds, and loneliness.
If you had heard it,
you'd remember.
one day you stumble
into someone who
doesn't shake their
head and walk away when you ask -
their quiet
interrupts your constant rhythm,
their gaze melt away
the fragments of
ectoplasm clogging
up your lungs
No, I've never heard
it before, they say
But it sounds
beautiful,
Is it yours?
you say: No, but
Then again, it's
been so long in my blood that i've
Forgotten where it
began, all i have left is layer upon
Layer of wishes, an
impression in sand of
What it should have
been,
So maybe,
Yes.
It's mine.
and something inside
you settles gently,
the frantic rushing
static quiets a little.
you don't notice
until later that you've forgotten the song
the last fragments
fell from your heart like
dead leaves from a
sleeping tree
but it doesn't
bother you anymore, because
there is someone
with a soul you recognize but don't yet know,
and they see your
ghosts and make up songs that fit the rhythm
of both of you
together.
wavelengths
colliding, mutual interference
comfortable radio
silence.
.
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