First day,
cheap red wine on your couch
You said,
write me something people still play in a hundred years
I laughed,
kissed your wrist,
promised a symphony
You kept the tickets stuck from that night in your wallet
I kept the promise in a drawer full of half
-finished scores Years stacked up like unpaid bills
Every time I sat at the piano,
you found another reason to leave the room
The week you got sick,
I finally started writing Page after page,
while machines beeped your
heartbeat in D minor You slept through the first movement,
never
woke for the second Tonight the hall is full of blacked eyes and
tears They don't understand, they rise to their
feet When the final chord collapses, I stand on
stage Holding silence like a wound,
and there's your name on the program Seat 1A,
front row,
center reserve The single wire rows already wilting
on the cushion They're clapping for the masterpiece
I'm staring at the only critic who'll matter
And she isn't breathing
The conductor keeps motioning me to bow I can't,
because if I bend,
I'll break
I count the empty inches where your shoulder should be
The oboe solo,
you would've squeezed my hand through the timpani
And you would've flinched at every note I
wrote was a letter I was too scared to speak
Now the letters are perfect,
and you're gone I titled it in case you come back
They printed in love and memory, instead,
same thing,
really
Standing ovation,
roaring like the ocean I keep waiting for you to stand up too
Shout that it's too loud,
that you hate modern composes
Anything,
but the seat stays dark,
the rose drops another pedal
And the applause starts to sound like rain on a coffin
I
left the last eight measures unresolved
The reviewers call it brave,
I call
it honoured
Because without you,
nothing ever finishes Nothing ever lands,
just keeps hanging in the
air Like the cold you never came back for