you insisted we were music and i laughed
and told you no
we were a record
and though we housed music inside us
a stranger to our world might look at us spinning
and forget what was there
before they even became aware of it.
that beauty was hidden in the dark thick grooved and hard
you can't just run your bathroom sink expecting to think of shining rivers
when you know whose blood has been washed down the drain
and just how much.

i think i was right
but for the wrong reasons.
i think there were nights when we spun and spun
scratched by some needle just out of our control
scraped in just the right places to make us sing or scream
but only just enough so we wouldn't bleed
i think we learned to worship the sting that came
from being a found thing in the world of the lost
after all, there are smart phones and ipods and streams
but i guess even shipwrecks have anchors.
maybe that's what you meant.