you wrote to me
"are you single?"
"sorry for being so blunt"
when I was little, back when things were as they appeared to be, I had a favorite music box.
there were three on the antique vanity in the master bedroom. there was the silver one, decorated with stars. sounded tinny and abrasive. it had a lid that made the music stop. and feet I remember it had three little feet. there was the wooden one. a fancy box with a fancy building painted over the lid. it opened on hinges to reveal all the tiny metal gears moving behind a pane of glass, making music with sharp metal parts. then there was the black jewelry box, with a red velvet inside. the mechanism was old and slow, would sometimes drift off before the key unwound. this one was my favorite. it played the saddest song I'd ever heard. sometimes though, it wouldn't play unless I moved the parts myself, but that never stopped me. it was the saddest song I'd ever heard, and I would listen to it over and over and over until one day it stopped making any sound at all. when I got a little older, I fixed it, took it apart and found what made it stop. and it still shudders and falters, slowly and fades away, like it can't remember how to play.
it's still the saddest song I've ever heard.
it stays the same.
it plays the same.
it fails the same.
it ties me down.
I need it now.
"so I'm single"
"I'm fine all is well"
"it wasn't fair to her"
can't get the tune out of my head now.
I miss it starting, slowing, resonating, stopping.
a drop of DW-40
a careful nudge
it speaks of me
that my idea of consistency
solidarity
is an unreliable music box.
never know when it'll play
but when it does, it plays the same.
"what are you doing tonight?"
"still in a relationship then?"
"man, I'm an *******"
*I need a melancholy music box tune
the saddest song I've ever heard
tie me down
hold me
and I can hold on too
otherwise I might float away
or fall to the floor.
everything was so good.
and now I can't be sure that I won't do something stupid
that I won't pull the the block from the bottom of the tower
I need the saddest song I've ever heard
to keep separate
what I want
what makes sense
and what is good.
I spent years trying to forget someone, but someone didn't forget me.