This song is late nights with texts books, incomprehensible writing, weak tea and flashcards. This song is my bedsheets and calendar, I know this song too well.

This song is what was playing when you called me, two in the morning, sobbing. I didn’t know what to say, how to act, this song gave you a shoulder to cry on, maybe this song could have healed you.

This song ran through my head when I realised it was over, that we wouldn’t speak again, that I had lost my best friend. The notes are my heart beat, hammering it in, I am still alive, still alive, still alive, still alive, sill alive.

Swells of music- god I drew you on my arm countless times, your soul was rosebuds and grape vines, cheap markers and pens.

Fast, loud- I was angry I guess but anger and sadness were one and the same. The music stopped and I realised what would happened. It started again, I accepted, moved on, heavy, this is so heavy.

I cried once and you felt bad and I didn’t want you too but I guess that’s us, we cry and we love each other and we try not to show it and the music grows- each note is my heartbeat I am still alive, still alive, still alive.

And you, the music is picking up again. Two melodies, I haven’t lost you, you are still alive, still alive, still alive.

So I say “Thank you Rachmaninoff,” and then, “Thank you Ms Fedorova,” (the pianist, I saw her and fell in love instantly) thank you for my friend and thank you for me, we are still alive, still alive, still alive.

What I envision:

There is a girl. A girl near a lake in the summer. Her light brown hair flows out behind her as she dances on the bank. Once in a while she dips her feet into the clear blue water. Her movements send ripples across the water's surface. A smile is adorned on her face and her moves elegant. She has a light green dress on made of silk. There is a sadness in her eyes, but a serene look about her face. Her feet are bare and skin shining in the moonlight. Her face is upturned and she radiates light. She is beautiful but inhuman. The lake continues to shimmer as she dances. Around and around. Her moves flow like the water itself. As the sun starts to rise she fades into the light, leaving behind a glistening lake and forrest full of life and happiness.

Music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E6b3swbnWg

The day starts off bright and early with the sounds of birds chirping and the bell ringing from the church. The baker walks down the street carrying his loaves of bread. A baby bird is hopping along the roof of the church. He takes a tumultuous fall but his mother saves him. The baby bird falls some more until it realizes that he has to flap his wings. Eventually, he takes control of his tiny body and the mother and baby bird start flying together. They soar, turning and spiraling in the air.

A horse and carriage clatter down the street and the mama bird and baby bird start following it. From the church's entrance steps out a young man. He is carrying a book and a stack of papers. He hails the horse and carriage that mama bird and baby bird are following and together they go rushing off through the city. Finally, they make it to his destination, a lovely college with a sprawling lawn. When they arrive, he rushes off and throws a handful of coins at the driver. The birds take this as a sign to settle down on the roof of the college. Inside the college, the boy runs, veering left and right in order to meet his deadline. He manages to hand his papers in at the very last second, and the professor makes a point of staring down at him over the top of her half-moon glasses. The boy smiles sheepishly and ambles off feeling accomplished.

This time he's in no rush and he strolls through the garden in front of the college and meanders along the cobbled streets back to the church. On his way he sees people sitting in the streets. He reaches into his pocket to give then a couple of cents but finds that he has no change on him as he spent it all on the horse and carriage. He hurries back to church and on his way splashes through a puddle of mud. He dashes into his room in the church and pulls out a handful of coins, dashing back through the streets and giving the people on the street some money.

They are extremely grateful for the money and thank him profusely before heading off to the bakers to buy a loaf of bread. They open the door to the bakers and he greets them when he hears the light tinkling of the bell. They find the largest and cheapest roll, and the baker, kindhearted that he is, sees their poverty in their tattered clothing and dirtied faces and gives it to them for free. They cry in gratitude and the baker decided to invite them over to dinner with his family. He can spare a couple bowls of soup for them. They thank him for his kindness and the baker takes them home.

Underneath the sun, layering, bursting, coming into being was a curiosity forbidden.

Would today be the day?

When finally their hands would graze each other’s as falling leaves twirled around their feet before the grand fountain? How long she had waited for this to be. His touch, his smile, his devotion. Lost so long ago she could barely remember, and now, out of the blue, returned. A single glimpse at possibility and what could be. One step from truth, a moment detached from everyday toils, one hope fluttered through the cloudless sky.

Now, landed her vision. She held her hands close to her heart as his carriage approached and tiny turtledoves, a fairy tale, flanked the procession. This delivered to her, as she’d always dreamed as a little girl.

He opens the door. Steps out.

Sun bursting so brilliant she cannot see. So close.

But, Oh! Blindness! She falls to the ground, sinking, seeping into mud, sucked down into the quicksand of possibilities lost. She cranks her neck at the sound of heels, his soldier’s boots, stopping next to her.

A hand reaches down. She grabs it. Is pulled from the wreckage of her own obsessions.

Him. Her. Them.

It will not last. This much she knows. Because the sun is fading now. Too fast. Vanishing behind trees. Barely noon.

He lets go her hand, turns on his heel, walks away. Toward the house. Knocks.

Her sister opens the door. His bride-to-be.

A grand and glorious wedding celebration lauded across the kingdom.

Her sister’s belly large with child.

The baby arrives. Then another. And another.

Auntie dotes on them, toys, candy, kisses galore. She lives alone, but close enough to what could have been, harboring in the sea of her beloved’s happiness.

One day a storm descends. Her sister’s fury echoes across the land. He storms out the door. The children cry. He has squandered their money. All of it.

The family’s wrath is quick, merciless. He is cast out, banished. Her father takes in the sister, her children, the tatters of their once bountiful love.

In a distant and unfamiliar land, he fumbles, struggles, flees demons, hope for a resurrection that never comes. She spies him in her dreams, chased by crows, their faces intoxicated with hate, their bites relentless.

Death by a thousand pecks. Swirling, swirling into the depths of his own destruction.

flowing gently - streams of time. ACK. flowing, amidst the vibrations - we all dance to the steps of such a universal plays. A ball, cinderella or beaty or the beast. Coming together and apart, chandelieres glistening like the flash of broken christmas lights.

Graves and yards, stone together and drafted, the waltzing of the spirits floating down the alleyways of my mind. Terminal velocity of the flow - my thoughs in spirals of soundwaves like the pull of the moon to the sea. Crashing floward, gently back. What ghosts dwell upon the prickling of our composure? the kiss of death meets the sunrise of a concioussness. They are lovers. Darkness and light melding into the hills and the dips of the earth, where the mountians meet the sky.

What do we call these points of convergence? chaos - full, rapid beating of my heart like adrenaline shooting through my veins i cannot stop i cannot breath and it comes out in a continuous spiril descent to madness i am not crazy i am not - wait. exhale. what shall come to pass, peace. no. the illusion of it.