Sometimes I won't listen to music lately. Because I wanna remember how to feel on my own. Yes. There, there, now I remember a little. The way you come into me. Can I welcome you inside? Do I have room there for anger and grief, laughter and joy? Or must I stop you with a silver spike gripped by brass knuckles, facing out from me and my shadow tonight?
No, no, come, come. Come into my arms. There now. Let me hold you like you were my child. Let us pass into a new understanding, the kind you find where there are no more secrets.
The thing that upsets me most is the amnesia. Or let's say, the limits of human memory. I feel I cannot endure your forgetfulness. Or mine. Who am I to forget everything or anything you ever told me. The things you told me with great difficulty, especially. Let's pretend I really was listening the first time, not cycling through my own internal. And so now there is only the matter of recall. There is the train whistle, subdued like a foghorn. No longer shrill anymore. Oh, this I remember. There is the haunting call of the fox and the wolf, the loon and the whippoorwill. These I could never forget. But you, you have told me the story of your life.
You have told me the story of your life, and now it continues. Now it continues on from where you left off. And you have my rapt attention, today, just like once I had yours. And there could be tears in your eyes, my dear, or are they just allergies, and I am present with you fully and I absorb your pain like a freight train I have willfully put myself before. Standing really in your place, though. To only feel the feelings you felt. To only know you that intimately. More than I sometimes know myself.
Sometimes I won't listen to music anymore. Because I need to remember how to feel on my own. I am sorry I forgot what you told me. I see the hurt in your eyes. Now this I know succinctly. I can honestly say I am sorry I could not stand in front of the freight train of your full speed feelings you conveyed. These, my dear, are only for you to feel, alone.
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