You can't help how a song makes you feel,
just as you can't help who or what you love.
You know this because you take the back seat
when the song comes on and suddenly you surrender to it's effect on you
because
((( THERE IT IS )))
Maybe it's a whole album.
One song.
One chorus.
One phrase.
Whatever it is, it's a ton of bricks when it hits you.
It sneaks up behind you in a taxi cab radio and knocks the wind out of you.
You get goose bumps on the airplane when you can hear it through 14D's headphones.
It sets you back on your run or it pushes you faster as it
takes you back in time.
It's more than just any old song.
It's the rhythm of two heartbeats,
one is always mine,
the other is Yours.
You, of course, the one whom I've connected with at some point in my life.
The point at which the song entered my mind
and never took exit.
You,
the smell of pancakes and syrup from my childhood,
the intersection I always stared at from the backseat of the car,
the time when I was conquering the world,
the times I felt ravaged by the venom of your casually cruel disdain.
You,
the first awkward slow dance,
the girl in the mirror staring back at me in 1985,
the lonely summer nights of my teenage catastrophe,
the punch that I got back up from.
You
are the song's effect on me.
So I have to say,
thank You for bringing me back to you every now and then.
For pulling me back like an arrow
so that I can now shoot forward with fervor.
Thank You for reminding me that you were once there,
and that now you're only a memory.
I've adjusted your volume,
as the punch was too loud at times,
and so ferociously fond at others.
Whisper the memory softly
as I walk the tightrope of fabric we've woven together.
Always remembering your presence and your absence,
teetering back and forth on this rope of time,
pancake of mine.
For all the miles of time between us,
you're still dancing around in my memory,
even as this new girl that I see in the mirror.
~ L ~
