Your Song Isn’t Mine to Grasp

A Poem

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

i could have listened to you
for a thousand years —
or so it felt at the time
when my heart beat fast
in tune with your every word
till I didn’t know where the song
began or ended, wrapping around me
as I wasted all my breath screaming for you.

my parents called me a groupie,
just another casual fan,
but you were mine first
before the fame and fire
collided and made you a star —
my faraway gleam, my heart’s wish —
but you weren’t listening, were you?
i was just another face in the crowd.

i still had your picture
from those long-ago days
when we were classmates, peers,
and maybe even friends —
but even then you had eyes only for
that large-scale piano, that sleek beauty,
who would never sway from your mind’s eye.
me? i was the background noise all the time.