My eyes stare at words
like vege and meat
on a cutting board,
cutting each to meaning
                               sound
                            meter,
sentences and syllables,
my OCD mind refuses to stop
revving the gas pedal
on my 1991 Buick LaSabre
before doing donuts in the parking lot
of a shut down K-Mart.

I had an idea
  Of what to write
                          say
                        recor­d
But got lost
like a rabbit who took
the wrong turn at Albuquerque—
and so I’m lost for words,
but here I am.

They told me to listen
because they’d already learned
enough from books to know

as they burned my soul
in their book burning glow.

I’d like to find the words
to cut right through the muck,
but when it comes to you
you know that I’m just stuck,

I ready up the blades
and soap clean my hands,
to work toward the heart
no matter where it lands—

All the things—
We said—
Will forever be dead—

But I’ll hold on—
Instead—
You’ll always live inside my head.

Sometimes, I hear a song
through someone
else’s headphones,
 too quiet to name
 but loud enough to feel.

I never ask what it is.
Letting it stay anonymous
 feels more honest.
It’s not mine.
I was just near it.

A violin behind a closed door
  in an apartment I’ll never enter.
Footsteps on an old wooden floor above me
  like a rhythm nobody meant to write.
A man humming in the metro
  not to perform,
  but because he’s alone
    and forgot the world has ears.

There are moments I’ve been completely undone
  by a melody I never fully heard.

Half of it lost to the train.
Half of it blurred by walls.
But something in me
  was tuned
    just right
      to catch what escaped.

We think music is what’s played.
But maybe it’s also what passes through
      when we weren’t looking.
      When we didn’t try to hold it.
      Or name it.
      Or own it.