Music is so much more
Than just rhythms on a page because
I can hear the bass in someone's chest
Or jazz in their laughter
And I can find music
In the way people's voices rise and fall
Or the sound of their lungs
The low trill that comes from the smugness in someone's voice
Or the fast strings of someone panicking
Some people sound like a piano, smooth and quiet
While others sound like the thunder of the brass,
Unable to be missed, but capable of tender moments
Because no one is less than an orchestrated piece
No one notices the subtle parts at first,
Like the vibrato in the solo of their thoughts
Or the sudden accelerando of passion and arguments
The forte pianos of being tired of fighting
Or the single flute of absolute euphoria
But when you return again and again
You fall in love with the way
Words seem to rise from their feet and wash over you like fog,
like a bassoon
Or the quickly improvised comments that fills you with a sense of warmth and safety  
play with the strings of your heart like a saxophone
Because nothing compares to noticing the people
Who are made up of nothing else but music

I walked into a room where you were
And my pride kept me from hightailing
It out of the room and running until
My legs burned with lactic acid.
You spoke to me but the words fell on dull ears.
You looked at me but I kept my walls up
Such that in my head I was invisible.
I had done so well protecting myself,
Staying away from the places you frequented,
Not spending time with the people you call friends
Even though they were my friends first.
And then today all my efforts became
Void, vain, utterly useless,
For there I was inwardly crumbling
The broken-then-stitched-back-together
Fragments of my heart
Between proverbial coldhearted fingers.
My jaw is as set as my will: like flintstone,
Cold, hard, and steeled.
You may once have had a hold on me,
Affected me, impacted me,
But today, you are nobody.

Yet, my pretty sportive friend,
Little is’t to such an end
That I praise thy rareness!
Other dogs may be thy peers
Haply in these drooping ears,
And this glossy fairness.

But of thee it shall be said,
This dog watched beside a bed
Day and night unweary—
Watched within a curtained room,
Where no sunbeam brake the gloom
Round the sick and dreary.

Roses, gathered for a vase,
In that chamber died apace,
Beam and breeze resigning.
This dog only, waited on,
Knowing that when light is gone
Love remains for shining.

Other dogs in thymy dew
Tracked the hares, and followed through
Sunny moor or meadow.
This dog only, crept and crept
Next a languid cheek that slept,
Sharing in the shadow.

Other dogs of loyal cheer
Bounded at the whistle clear,
Up the woodside hieing.
This dog only, watched in reach
Of a faintly uttered speech,
Or a louder sighing.

And if one or two quick tears
Dropped upon his glossy ears,
Or a sigh came double—
Up he sprang in eager haste,
Fawning, fondling, breathing fast,
In a tender trouble.

And this dog was satisfied
If a pale thin hand would glide
Down his dewlaps sloping—
Which he pushed his nose within,
After—platforming his chin
On the palm left open.

Let's play a game,
Truth or dare?
I'll go first,
But we gotta play fair.

If I picked truth,
and told you I cared.
Is that too much information,
I will have shared?

I dare you to say,
I meant nothing to you.
For only we know,
That I secretly do.

<3 Always,
    Tameica Hammick.