When you first
met me,
you weren’t there.
Your eyes, focused
on another space,
another time.
And your limbs,
just barely under
your own control,
as if the weight
of all of your life
had stolen your height.
And yet you hauled this
leaded self towards me,
from three streets away.
And you sat at my feet,
like a child,
as I played.
Honestly, I was embarrassed.
I didn’t know what it was,
at the time.
But I saw how the
music pulled you in,
the way it pulls at me.
And so I sang for you
as you drifted
from here, to
wherever
there
was.
…
It’d be months,
I think, before you’d
claw your way back.
Reluctantly,
yet powerfully
fueled by
the fierce and terrifying forces
of your mother,
and the nature of yourself.
And you would sing to me
your own songs.
So that I
could, finally,
meet
you.
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