Constant Satellite

He traces a finger long up and down the ivory, the moment of artistry must speak for itself, must be given the time to uncoil and make beautiful it's own moment in time and place. It must be given space to have life, that it lives with honesty and integrity forever.

He sits at the bench, one foot tests the pedals that he knows so well, and still his fingers run up and down the keys. The moment comes.

A flash, and he hears emotion, it sends shivers down the spine, it pulls his index finger to the starting place. His eyes close, and his head tilts ever so minutely.

The first note, the second, clear as a bell. His left hand rests, and then begins to play as well. He sees nothing and everything at once, from behind closed lids.

A whisper...and the words come in a dream.

hey love
is that the name you're meant to have
for me to call
look love
they've given up believing
they've turned aside our stories of the gentle fall

but don't you believe them
don't you drink their poison too
these are the scars that words have carved
on me

hey love
that's the name we've long held back
from the core of truth

so don't turn away now
I am turning in revolution
these are the scars that silence carved
on me

this is the same place
no not the same place
this is the same place, love
no not the same place we've been before

He pauses, hesitates, the music consumes him, burning up and his voice chokes. He is the canvas now, and the music spiraling around the room is his paint, beautiful, distinct. It rings from every surface, it lifts and takes hold of its listeners. His eyes open, and he is far away, with fingers still dancing, with music and song spilling from his mouth, but what he sees, they cannot profess to know.

For a second, a glimmer, an instant that transposes forever, she sees a tear at the corner of his mind's eye.

hey love
I am a constant satellite
of your blazing sun
my love
I obey your law of gravity
this is the fate you've carved on me

He closes his eyes, and as the piano goes silent, and the music dies, the applause takes over. The words and talking, "where did you learn..." "...what song is" "how did you?"

He rises, and as a shadow disappears. But shadows have memories, and he can't get the image of her out of his mind.

Hey love,
I am a constant satellite.

Sunshine of the Spotless

"This is it Joel...it's gonna be gone soon."

"I know..." The words spill out of my mouth, I want to say I don't know what I'm saying. All my life, I've been the fumbling kid who daydreams in the books and talks only when necessary, a titch too loud, and with just enough silence to cover that he doesn't know what he's doing. Holding on to moments, that may or may not have been. As though what could've been and my memory have mixed themselves up.

"What are we gonna do?" She looks at me, she watches me. There's something different in the way she see's me, something idealized, and I know distinctly that this isn't really her, it's what I want her to be. But that's not really true. She's everything.

"Enjoy it, and say goodbye." We run...along the side of the beach. Moments I remember, fading slowly, drifting away like ashes on the wind. We relive these memories, until...

"What if you stayed?" Her voice drifts out through the house. It calls me back, and I don't remember it.

"How? I'm already out the door?" I want her to be rational, in the midst of nothing making sense, and I realize how foolish I have to sound at this moment.

"Can you come back? Can we have a good-bye at least? Let's pretend we had one." She appears at the top of the stairs, warm eyes behind a sheen of tears. I want to hold on...I want to clutch the moments tight in my fingers, and never let them go. I want a lot of things, a lot more things than I or anyone should deserve. She walks down the stairs. Across the memories falling like broken glass and takes my fingers in her warm touch. "Bye Joel."

"I...love you." And it's gone, all I see are flickering lights, tearing past a glittering night car-ride. I want to hold on to the memory, I want it to stay in my head, burn it forever into my brain, a moment, a second, even a hesitation and it's gone. And it disappears, and I can't even pull her name up. Can't even remember if I loved her or not, or who she is. Moments lost.

The blur becomes a pain in my heart, a wrenching without knowing why.

"I saw you talking to someone pretty!"

Was I?

"Yeah man, who was that?"

She was. "She was..." She was. I don't. Know. "...just a girl."

And it's gone.

Motion Above

I'm restless. Knew that all day. Packing life into boxes, trinkets here, trinkets there. Pages of text, carefully sorted away, tucked away and archived. Things I'll never look at again until the next time I move. It's an existence where I can get through an entire day without speaking a word sometimes, left to my own devices, in the solitude of my own mind.

My feet carry me before I know where I am, and I'm surrounded by trees, music between my ears, a pen and paper. I'm walking, without knowing why. My feet carry me onto the bridge, and the roar of cars does nothing to dampen the noise of murmurs in my mind. Up and down, once more, across the bridge, restless, pacing over a kilometre. An old man jogging laps back and forth, a girl with red top who is rollerblading, and a boy on a bicycle that looks at me strangely. I imagine that lost in my own thoughts, I must make for a strange sight. I stop halfway down the bridge, and on an impulse lean on the fence. Their existence falls away.

The sun is already dropped below the horizon, and splashes of red are disappearing into the dark. On an impulse, I've already pulled myself up the guard-rail and am sitting above a sheer drop of a 100 feet above the river. Why? Why not. I think for a moment that I might even stand, staring out over the water and the green and the blue.

I'm not suicidal, I'm just looking to fly.

Hello up there.

The girl in the red top with rollerblades. She pulls up alongside me.

Hello down there.

You're not...thinking of jumping are you?

Am I? No I don't think so.

No.

Then what are you doing?

What am I doing?

I just came to get a little...a little perspective.

Ah. Aren't you, you know, afraid you might get knocked? Or lose your balance?

I'm alright with that.

Oh. I'm Rachel.

I'm Lester. How do you do?

I guess I'm good, I was just curious about you.

I would be curious about me too.

What do you mean?

I have no idea how I got here.

Oh. Are you drunk? Or high?

No. I'm just...thinking.

Oh. What are you listening to?

This? Just sort of a post-rock band. You?

I'm listening to Matthew good. What's post-rock?

Sort of futuristic rock music, usually without lyrics. It's like having a movie score in the background.

I see. Hold on a second.

And just like that, she pulls her self up to straddle the fence next to me.

I'd ask if you feel safe doing that in rollerblades, but it's something of a moot point isn't it?

Hah, too late I guess hey?

Yup.

And we sit like that for a long time, and I listen to my post-rock music, while we watch the color bleed from the open sky.