Writing Your Song

I don’t know if it’s inspiration that hits or just the breaking of all my attempts to keep my expectations at bay. Words sift through my mind, whispering their presence, begging to be put onto paper, into chords. My fingers start twitching in rhythm, strumming invisible strings. The rational part of me looks to the clock. Is there time? Once I start, the OCD in me won’t let me stop until it is finished. Until I get it all out. The music fades in my head and your picture takes its place. That’s the deal breaker.

The crack in the neck and the backwards strings inspire another groan as I begrudgingly pick up my guitar. I feel the $200 burning away in my wallet, waiting for more before it can be spent on a better one. You’ve played these strings, your calloused fingers swifter and more skilled than mine. You always roll your eyes when it goes out of tune just minutes after you’ve sharpened the flats and flattened the sharps. After you honor my request to play just one song, your veined arms always lengthen, pushing the guitar towards me to reciprocate. Never fails. But I still feel shy and unsteady when I play in front of you, so I bat my eyelashes until you give up and start playing again.

I sit in front of my computer’s glare, hoping no one disturbs me for the next half an hour because to admit you were bringing a song out of me would make me too vulnerable. Others might think I’m falling too fast. I certainly won’t tell you.

The melody that has been itching at me begins to manifest itself onto the strings. An intro, a verse, a struggle to match my voice to the emotions that want to pour out. I want this to be a good one, for you. I toss aside the usual cliche rhymes, the minute details that add a quirk. What I have to say can be put simply this time. I edit, record, edit, re-word until I feel you in it. People have begun to flow into the room, drawn by the familiar humming and broken strums of my songwriting. I blush and say it’s not about you. I cover the screen, lower my voice.

I won’t tell. Because the newness of you is unexplored territory that I want to discover privately, just the melody and I.

-Bri