One Day I Sat & Thought and It Was All Too Much

She had those jealous eyes.
The kind that would shatter your confidence and bring you down to her level
It’s always sudden when they plunge that knife inside themselves
Blood spilled past the fingers, past the wound
We’d put band-aids over it, but it wouldn’t heal
She’d pick at the scab, exposing oxygen to her insides
She wanted to breathe. She wanted to sleep.
The sun wouldn’t stop, so she wore sunglasses with every hour.
The seconds fell silent, the days screaming to be months.
I stood idle, laughing to myself.
“Oh sweet darling, I’m at your aid, I’d walk miles to heal you!”
I kept the medicine from her in a box my grandmother gave me
The rust on the key reminded me of you:
You know, aging, losing purpose… and just dying to be replaced.

It was like the old piano at my sister’s house that I always wondered about
One day I played it, placing my fingertips softly on the ivory
I pressed down and it was the sound that made me feel…
It made me feel ugly and beautiful. Loud and untuned.
Like an unfinished masterpiece.
I wanted to write notes.
I wanted to write that one sound that’ll make you cry.
Too bad I quit piano lessons when I was nine.