Somehow, despite all the flowing music
Streaming from the tape recorder,
It’s as if someone’s knocked out all the light
In the night sky, and left only these wispy notes.

They run deep through my veins,
Traversing darkness—you could call it “Growing Pains,”
Though it feels more like a chilly field—each note
Like a wayward crow

Stripping away slowly each song, chord by chord,
Till they begin to distort
The words themselves, turn hail to howl
And carve into the fields, their scowls.

Already the field fills with their breathy chirps,
Chipping away at the rhythm that
Gives each song its cadence—
Stripping the whistle from each hum of the wind.