Sound Like Jazz

The other day

I got drunk with my friends.

And as is always the case

We got to talking about deep shit

That none of us would remember.

But I remember this.

We were going around our circle of friends

Talking about the lowest point

We had ever been in

For a reason

Only five

(or six)

Bottles of Shiner Cheer could explain.

And when it got to me

I didn't even have to think

To know my answer

Was already waiting for its chance to speak.

Like a suicide note written in gel pen

Sitting on the empty counter in the kitchen.

I said

"I wanted to sound like jazz.

To be a beautiful noise

That takes what it is given

From the instruments around it

And adapts itself

To form a melody

Greater than its individual parts."

I said

"I met this girl

That made me want to be a part of the song

In the smile lines on her cheeks.

She

Was fifty-two parts Chopsticks

But thirty-six parts Beethoven: sonata Op. 106 in B flat major

She

Was a piano masterpiece

My fingers couldn't quite keep up with.

But I practiced

Hard

To force them to match her fast paced

Free spirit tempo

My going steady hands weren't too rehearsed in.

I was willing

To play to a beat

My heart frequently lost count of

In the hopes

That the music of our relationship would add up.

I dressed myself in false vibrato,

Ignored my overstretched heartbeats staccato,

And tried my best not to play too loud

When other instruments were introduced.

But at the end of our set,

All I was left with were notes held too long

In hands

That had already started working on their next performance.

Broken strings

From being tuned too tight

To her perfect tune too many times.

And an emptiness

Whose instrument of choice was silence.

Together we made incomplete music.

And when the notes I played for weeks

Came back with no response

I finally realized that I was the instrument being played.

And if I was just a musical accompaniment,

Background for someone else performing,

Then I wanted to sound

Like the bottom of a full bottle of codeine.

My sounds slowing.

My heart beat numbing.

And then eventually

To sound like

Nothing."

My friends grew quiet

Then one of them asked me

"How I got over it?"

I said

"Sometimes

I'm not sure I ever did."

She said

"I don't understand.

God didn't give you two hands and a song

So you could play third chair

In someone else's orchestra.

You,

Can sound like jazz if you want to.

But the best songs

Are often the ones you can't quite categorize.

Only make you release

How alive you are.

And can we stop talking in metaphor?

You tried to kill yourself because some girl broke your heart.

That shit's hard.

But if you let someone else

Tell you when it's your turn to make music,

All you will ever be is an instrument.

I said

"I think

That's a metaphor isn't it?"

And I'm pretty sure she hit me after that.

Because my arm hurt like shit next day.

But that pain

Barely registered in my brain

As the haze faded

And I was left with something I pray

I never need five

(or six)

Beers and some good friends to find again.

Peace.

And the hope

That this instrument

Becomes a melody,

That someone else

Can't stop humming.