The beast rolls around the corner,
its head rearing, taunting and playing
the piano keys like Beethoven on his last hurrah,
proudly smothering my chest with an ache,
an emptiness.
"Only between us," you say, a glance my way,
a reassurance, with a cloying smile. My heart tightens,
"No," I was about to answer, but my thoughts move,
the dictionary in my head turning "no" into a, "Yes, of course".
Turning my truth into a lie,
my heart the severing line.
Giving my frown the definition of a smile.
Beethoven still plays the piano in my mind,
playing his wonderful concertos and sonatas,
this deaf man.
And you can call me friend, your comrade,
your companion, in that less of a jumbled dictionary of yours,
filled with dog-eared pages and highlighted words.
"You matter to me," I say with every ounce of conviction.
You can hear me, but unlike Beethoven you never make a sound.
And I am the broken recorder, testing my conviction.
But as Beethoven is deaf,
in this mental dictionary of mine,
filled with contradiction,
you are the only word
whose definition is friend and foe,
both one and the same.
Too near to the line to be different.
And the strange thing perhaps,
is that it has never changed.
I don't know, I just thought that maybe I'd like to mention Beethoven in a poem
