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He was reaching for a girl who lived like smoke on the fingertips of men,
Never resting too long, but leaving a scent to strike a chord on the senses.
Piano hands grasped her for a moment, only to find that she'd slipped through –
So he smoked cigarettes,
pretending not to see her perched on the edge of another's fancy cigar.

I used to listen to him play at night and dream
of sitting on that sleek black cover as he seduced notes from the keys.
He told me his stories in ways I could never imagine
and tore me away from the eloquent stanzas
that I had previously loved.

But she took all the music out of him.
Pulled at the strings of his heart and left him painfully out of tune.
He no longer played me sonatas, and I realized
That absence makes the heart grow fonder.

He left me for a long, long time.

And when words could no longer substitute elaborate harmonies
I dropped my pen away.
Found someone else who would write for me –
a whirlpool of stories that dragged me under
to where prose blocked out the silence of dead keys.

Sinking,
I did not fight.
I did not feel.

-

.I did not resurface.