there is an old persian legend of a man who falls in love
with a woman and goes insane when he cannot have her.
even after she is married to someone else, he spends his days
composing love songs in the dirt, building sandcastle hearts
just to watch them collapse again when the tide rolls back in.
years pass, and the girl never writes anything back.
i still wonder if she was ever given the chance to.
i was twenty-seven when i learned that you could fashion a
stethoscope out of a cassette tape, broadcast the sounds of your
heart to a double guitar riff that screamed desire. you pressed
play and in an instant, i was priest to your deepest confessional.
i never asked about how you looked at me on the days that my
husband was too busy finding god to join me in bed at night.
i never wanted to know that you sinned in the color of my eyes.
i never thought i’d be remembered for the moment that i traded
krishna for cocaine, and the thousand days that followed:
day 176: we mix love and self-destruction in an old hotel room
until they go down my throat as easily as sweet red wine.
day 472: you turn watching me get ready for a party into an
excuse to make love to my reflection with the windows open.
day 894: you spend the entire morning restringing your guitar
but i can still recognize another woman’s voice in its tone.
day 1000: i loved you but never had the instruments to prove it.
we’ve both realized that obsession is a drug best left to legend.
to this day, they still call me the greatest muse of rock and roll,
but each switch of the radio dial is just another reminder that i
once tasted like music in the mouths of men, that their words built
me up like a flower-child mona lisa in all the permanence of three
minutes of vinyl, that though i inspired the most beautiful lyrics
ever written about love, they never called me onstage to sing them.
i was once told that if you love a woman to the point of madness, she
will become it. but any insanity i have remains etched on the insides
of my veins; i walk beaches now, much too old for sandcastle-building.
years pass, and the girl has never written anything back.
i still wonder if she will ever be given the chance to.
even the world’s greatest muses sometimes want to hold the pen.