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.