Letters to Satie

March 10, 2012

.

I found Satie in a cereal box

when I was little, perhaps

eleven or seven or nine,

in a compilation of

autumn's songs.

.

Each sound like steps;

brittle notes that are forceful

and resonant, but breakable if I

were to interrupt the cascade of tune.

I think of when I used to

greet ivory keys every so often;

kiss the tunes that twisted my guts

and made me come back for more.

.

I think of when I learned to quit.

Squeeze smaller while bits of land

were torn asunder. My island shrinks

and I steady weary feet. I shift tired legs

that are now nearly walking on stilts alone.

.

So unlike the violent screech of waves;

the tearing, crashing of the tide as it roars

and pulls itself ever closer to my sun-painted

limbs. The sea is like an angry mob of chorusing

particles, each one desperate to leap over the other.

Each one apathy fading quick, to short-wicked candles;

how human reason burns fast, to make way for anger.

The hateful sound of waves.

.

But beneath the soaring, steady lull of dropped notes,

I slept atop the ocean. I was carried away like

a grain of salt- dissolved. When I lose myself,

I tear little chunks of sky out, as I hemorrhage

out sanity, filled with the cells of my being.

I desperately plug these wounds with sand

when I awake from my comatose slumber.

I am nearly filled to the brim with sand.

.

Inside my mind, I am not standing on the beach,

I am trapped inside of ornate hotel rooms, each one

temporary respites. I wish I could wallpaper

the ceiling and floor with fragments of everything

beautiful I've ever loved, but then I'd have to leave;

checkout in the morning, and forget.

.

(Look left, up at the sky or the ground because

if I snuck flickering glances up, I might meet a gaze

and have to tear the wallpaper down.)

.

Now that I've aged a little older,

waned the glowing spark in my naive eyes,

I find honesty a fleeting objective, the false

premise of a fairytale. I find leathery skin and

inky under-eyes, worn with the curse of spilled

words which seep out this brain like visceral tears.

Stagnancy becomes my bitterly insecure friend,

eager to prove itself against my plagiarized joy.

.

Sediment cools my writhing, fiercely thrashing

anger. I am too old here and a toddler there. Now

I find I've never left the beach; hotel walls collapse

around me. The waves are still groaning, falling flat

to my deaf ears. I would ask Satie to crash hard waves

on aged black and white keys.