It was always
A true fantasy
We never got to experience love in person

The candles are new and burn brightly,
Set on the windowsill high above my head.
Gingerbread is fresh, and the taste
Lingers in the warm, toasty air.
Cousin Kyle lifts me so I can hang my annual ornament,
And Great-Grandma smiles from her armchair.
The candles are a little shorter but still burn with fervor,
My fingertips just reach the windowsill.
The gingerbread is just as good as last year,
And the smell permeates my pink sweater.
Cousin Kyle lifts me to the top of the tree,
And Great-Grandma smiles from her armchair.
The candles are burning determinedly and pushing their last
And I playfully plaster their wax over my gradually growing fingers.
I help make the gingerbread,
And am covered in flour the rest of the evening.
Cousin Kyle and his girlfriend help me hang my ornaments,
And Great-Grandma smiles from her armchair.
The candles are almost nonexistent now,
And I light them for my mother.
I accidentally burn the gingerbread,
And the smoke infiltrates the whole house.
Cousin Kyle doesn’t want to help hang my ornaments,
And Great-Grandma sighs from her chair.
The electric candles blink in the window,
And I replace their bulbs with care.
The gingerbread doesn’t taste as good as it did when I was little,
But it brings back a heavy wave of warm nostalgia.
Cousin Kyle is off in Afghanistan,
And Great-Grandma sleeps in her chair.
The magic of Christmas never fades.
Sometimes it’s just buried deep in a box of ornaments
Or sitting in a quilted armchair
Waiting for that little girl
To remember.

Bows on your toes
and the stars in your ears
Hair in a plait
You don't invoke any fears

Miss Mara Mae
Just look what you've done
The sky over you's turning grey
Miss Mara Mae
Now you've had all your fun
And the whole world will have to pay

We're not your playground
We're not your vice
You've an interior of cold
Under the sugar and spice

So Mara, Mara, Mara Mae
leave us alone for just this one day
Let us be free to roam and to live
Because we don't want what you have to give.

When I was little, it was an echo.
A murmur, a silence, a thought.
A wish.
It was the idea, bouncing from file cabinet to file cabinet
Within my head, searching for a pedestal,
An outlet, an open vent.


When I was in-between, it was a word.
An utterance, a noise, a spark.
A reality.
It was the feeling, reverberating from key to key
Within our strawberry den, playing heartstrings;
An escape, a tremor.


When I was older, it was a scream.
A plea, a stammer, a stomp.
A fantasy.
It was the grievance, pushing from ivory to ivory
Within the confines of a flat escalator,
A button, an ending.


My piano has always been my life.
As a child, I yearned for one. I played that plastic one
That sat on my windowsill
Until the keys didn’t register feeling.
And at that point, I didn’t either.


Coming home to a baby grand at the age of four
Was like coming home to a free pass to heaven.
The keys gave me life, a voice, a pair of stilts
That pushed me higher
Than I thought I would go.


Who knew the presence of music could help
Me to find
Myself?


And further, who could tell
The insurmountable ways music,
The flowing of one note into a gentle finger stroke
Could outlet my fears, anxieties, and worries
Into a world where none of it mattered?
None?


My music, my piano, my life.
Synonymous with each other, they
Represent change.


All I am, ever was,
And ever will be.


You can find me
Within a treble staff.