The old man carried a cello and a stool Bullets divided wind So many straight lines he could see them like sheet music
He sat the stool down in the middle of the street Held his cello And played under the gunshots Until everything was quiet
And in the outdoor acoustics Made by apartment buildings and the morning cold He played a fifteen minute rendition of heartache On a cello tuned to the key of thunder
His high notes were so much screaming And the deep low notes bellowed his hunger It was the simple sound of savagery When people needed another way to know what pain sounds like
They could hear it in the way that the strings Absorbed the rust from his arthritic fingertips Scraping the sound of struggle
It was the most painfully beautiful music He played to the soft continuous metronome click of reloading Beauty like a rose that dies in the hair of a girl Whose own rose is a blooming ****** chest wound
Thought maybe he could replant her Like the earth might give her back
Anything plucked from the root dies shortly after He played for her He played for courage He played like a prayer to be shot doing what he loved
We all wanna die doing what we love
She was shot picking roses
He played cello On a playground of bullets A song that begged **** me
Where is your god now? When all you wanted was to be a casualty of love and music
He finished Beads of sweat like ***** diamonds As the morning sun mocked him for living another day
Some of us get to walk away from this Without a single scar Even if we wanted one
He walked away
And shortly after
The bullets began to do what bullets do When they pierce flesh