I listen to a love song at four in the afternoon as the clouds rage outside, ready to pour. It reminds me of no one, but it can still serve its purpose. It moves along like a train chugging about through landscapes of memory with no stops on its course. There is no muse in this room, this life, yet the song talks of love, yet I understand. I lose myself in the verse, the chorus, the music, and the remnants of a feeling. I let the song repeat, and the clouds in my periphery get dreamier by the minute as I lie down and let the song wash over me like the rain does on the world. So much of what I want to say is contingent on having someone to say it about. In my imagination, I have written a full anthology of poems for someone else, and none exist just yet. They say you should write what you know, and so I stop myself from putting words down until they are for somebody. So much of what I write depends on how my life has gone, and so much remains to be decided by how it will go.
It is five in the evening on a Tuesday in March, and I let myself melt into a sleep you do not get often. The one where you are still awake; you know a song plays in the room, echoing through the leaves of the plants that would not stop growing, that have far outgrown their pots; you know the clouds are dancing over the sky in a sort of waltz or a foxtrot. There is a sort of playfulness in the air around you, and you are asleep, yes, but you are also wide awake and aware of the moment at hand. I listen to a love song without anyone to dedicate it to, and I think of the poems I could write, of the moments I could live, of the laughter I could laugh, and then, the power goes out. The weather has gotten on, and the rain continues pouring. As the power comes back on, I think of starting the song again, but its moment has passed. That is the thing about abrupt endings. They tend to take everything along.
Of course, life gets on as the weather does; it does not change what you have left behind. You continue living and laughing, but not like you would have, no. Not like that at all.