Creative Non-Fiction (Both Auditory & Weekly): Jeff Buckley - Lover, You Should've Come Over

As in: maybe I’m too young / to keep good love from going wrong.  Too young to hold on / too old to just break free and run.

I thought I'd start off the tradition with something appropriately dramatic.

To my sweetheart, the drunk:

(pardon the reference, this isn't to my sweetheart and there's no drunk)

At the end of the week I realized my problem had sprung from a lack of music.  I had experienced chronic failure to inject it into my veins, to let it explode my heart within my chest, to open my throat wide so it could come out.  I had spent the week adrift, my feet never on the ground, my soul standing with one foot outside the door.

Now here I was, stretching my voice to reach into the playlist I’d so aptly titled “Songs I Wish I Could Sing.”  Since the house was empty I could actually half do it, experimenting with range and emotion, letting my voice bounce fearlessly off all the walls.  Even as I was relaxing, releasing, digging in and supporting these songs with the strength of my body, I was wishing I could do this for someone else.  Wondering why song, like my rawest emotions, bruised itself continuously against an invisible wall every time I tried to project it in the direction of someone I loved.

Oh, but then I thought of you, too.  Imagined you at the piano with this lovely creature of a piece that was so full of heartbreak.  I wondered, having never heard you use your voice that way, if you could—or more appropriately, if you would, if you would want to.  If you had ever experienced a desire for song that verged on...could I say it?

Music is such a visceral, physical pleasure.  Everyone I’ve fantasized myself into song with should know it, but that’s where it all collides, leaning defeated against a wall inside, somehow keeping a straight face while fighting to burst free.  It engages in an interplay like lovers hidden in a tiny room, one about to cry out, the other placing an extended index finger over that sly smile, the one that says “this is ours, don’t let them hear.”

Eventually, of course, the song had to end despite itself, despite repeating lines of “it’s never over” (my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder).  As it faded away into the next song it set me down firmly on my feet, the ground feeling solid for the first time all week.