canon state of mind { ☀ } clare.
Jul 5, 2017 19:40:55 GMT -5
Post by fox on Jul 5, 2017 19:40:55 GMT -5
C L A R E M O N T
► ► ►
Sometimes I believe
that every magnificent thing has been made –
that some time in the past, I'd already played the most beautiful note, the last simple sound
and missed it
to my ignorance.
The wood vibrates beneath my hands, an audio fury that sounds recurrent to the notes I remember,
lightly and then
silence and then
nothing.
Fuck.
Half past twelve,
sometimes I believe
that all of this is just a repetition, an echo,
again and again, sick mania
in music that has been wrung dry by my hands, by each musician milking the histories of compositions, emptied the life of each song for nauseating depletion.
I used to know the music, the stories of composers like plants, listened as a meadow grew forth from the bow. I used to give myself to each note, made gardens out of my hands, planted the sounds that meant something.
One a.m., slim anatomy, greedy noises – hungry.
I feel sore. My face hurts.
And this means nothing.
Final notes ring out,
faults expanded, a noise delayed and stretched out in shame. I want to fucking scream.
I just want to scream.
I just want to sleep.
Maybe I can never play
like I did at fifteen
in the velvet privacy
of night,
a plush secret
in bloom,
primordial.
Everything was easy then, new, simple
just to play without weight, con amore, whatever.
But I’m tired of moonlight.
I'm tired of this.
And maybe they're right.
I tell him to fuck off.
I’m fucking finished.
The blood of a fifteen year old moves in my veins, like an itch, and I can’t find him, hidden underneath something growing heavy and obstinate, unreachable and
my hold slips.
Fuck.
I never want to get used to
the idea of not playing.
I never want my hands to leave the bow and the strings
and know what it feels like to be without this love.
So why can’t I play?
Why can’t I do this?
Why the fuck can’t I?
His hand on my face is
a memory, pain of an infliction,
their words all over again, same thought, same thought, but stronger every cycle back. As I grow older, time moves without the same romanticism – or had it always?
Maybe,
I can’t make this life, a future.
Maybe,
I am ungrateful. And I am not the career that they want. Or maybe,
not even the son that they deserve. And this is just my fault.
He held my arm in the Training Center, twisted against my back, my father watching the match, screaming for me to fight back. But that was not a risk, not a danger. It was a certainty,
He told me I was a coward, paraphrasing, or
a fucking bitch.
I test my arm,
draw the bow across the strings, listen to his voice, low and heavy in the cadence, crude progression.
And I test my arm, test my fists,
draw blood across the strings.
I used to believe that this was possible, that somehow, in some stupid idealism, that glory could be found,
not in the feats of heroism laid across in an arena, not in bloody battles, conquests upheld in District Two –
but in music,
in tempo, in pitch,
that there was some kind of strength
in beauty, in a different type of perfection lined in a bow.
At five, at fifteen,
I just wanted to play for myself.
Seventeen, I need exaltation. I need precision. I need realization. I need something much much much fucking more.
I asked Iso one day
why he was choosing to give everything up, right before he left – and without hesitation, in the conviction of his words, he looked at me.
Because love is never enough.
Two a.m., the music stand on the floor, a hurricane of thousand papers raining down in the room, and my hands are shaking. Silence, and then a roar of ringing in red.
I just want to scream.
Until I hear nothing else.
Until this is all gone.
Until it’s over.
Three a.m.,
I pick up the stand, iron
on iron, smudged sounds staining music sheets.
Four a.m.,
I pick up the bow, fingers aching.
Because absolute perfection
needs
not love;
absolute perfection
needs
absolute
sacrifice.
that every magnificent thing has been made –
that some time in the past, I'd already played the most beautiful note, the last simple sound
and missed it
to my ignorance.
The wood vibrates beneath my hands, an audio fury that sounds recurrent to the notes I remember,
lightly and then
silence and then
nothing.
Fuck.
Half past twelve,
sometimes I believe
that all of this is just a repetition, an echo,
again and again, sick mania
in music that has been wrung dry by my hands, by each musician milking the histories of compositions, emptied the life of each song for nauseating depletion.
I used to know the music, the stories of composers like plants, listened as a meadow grew forth from the bow. I used to give myself to each note, made gardens out of my hands, planted the sounds that meant something.
One a.m., slim anatomy, greedy noises – hungry.
I feel sore. My face hurts.
And this means nothing.
Final notes ring out,
faults expanded, a noise delayed and stretched out in shame. I want to fucking scream.
I just want to scream.
I just want to sleep.
Maybe I can never play
like I did at fifteen
in the velvet privacy
of night,
a plush secret
in bloom,
primordial.
Everything was easy then, new, simple
just to play without weight, con amore, whatever.
But I’m tired of moonlight.
I'm tired of this.
And maybe they're right.
Someone knocks on the door, “we’re closing –”
I tell him to fuck off.
I’m fucking finished.
The blood of a fifteen year old moves in my veins, like an itch, and I can’t find him, hidden underneath something growing heavy and obstinate, unreachable and
my hold slips.
Fuck.
I never want to get used to
the idea of not playing.
I never want my hands to leave the bow and the strings
and know what it feels like to be without this love.
So why can’t I play?
Why can’t I do this?
Why the fuck can’t I?
Fuckfuck fuck fuck fuck
His hand on my face is
a memory, pain of an infliction,
their words all over again, same thought, same thought, but stronger every cycle back. As I grow older, time moves without the same romanticism – or had it always?
Maybe,
I can’t make this life, a future.
Maybe,
I am ungrateful. And I am not the career that they want. Or maybe,
not even the son that they deserve. And this is just my fault.
He held my arm in the Training Center, twisted against my back, my father watching the match, screaming for me to fight back. But that was not a risk, not a danger. It was a certainty,
“I forfeit.”
He told me I was a coward, paraphrasing, or
a fucking bitch.
I test my arm,
draw the bow across the strings, listen to his voice, low and heavy in the cadence, crude progression.
And I test my arm, test my fists,
draw blood across the strings.
I used to believe that this was possible, that somehow, in some stupid idealism, that glory could be found,
not in the feats of heroism laid across in an arena, not in bloody battles, conquests upheld in District Two –
but in music,
in tempo, in pitch,
that there was some kind of strength
in beauty, in a different type of perfection lined in a bow.
At five, at fifteen,
I just wanted to play for myself.
Seventeen, I need exaltation. I need precision. I need realization. I need something much much much fucking more.
I asked Iso one day
why he was choosing to give everything up, right before he left – and without hesitation, in the conviction of his words, he looked at me.
“Because love is not enough.”
Because love is never enough.
Two a.m., the music stand on the floor, a hurricane of thousand papers raining down in the room, and my hands are shaking. Silence, and then a roar of ringing in red.
I just want to scream.
Until I hear nothing else.
Until this is all gone.
Until it’s over.
Three a.m.,
I pick up the stand, iron
on iron, smudged sounds staining music sheets.
Four a.m.,
I pick up the bow, fingers aching.
Because absolute perfection
needs
not love;
absolute perfection
needs
absolute
sacrifice.
