Noises.

I won’t ever cut my hand
Over the rough edges of your soul.
I won’t ever be repulsed
By the twisted corners of your mind.
I won’t ever look
At your body before I look at your eyes.
But I will listen to your voice,
And measure you against
A scale of lifts and falls
And riffs and chords.
Because I have spent half of my life
Trying to make music out of the noise
Which never leaves me alone;
Trying to find the rhythm in the
Howls of the tormented dogs,
And the sirens of the cars
As I saw their blurred headlights
Through my window panes,
And the raindrops trickled down the glass.
The thunder and the lightning
Never sounded out of place to me,
Because I have taught myself to
Make sense of the noise
Which never leaves me alone,
Which makes me fear the unknown silence.
But I will listen to your voice,
And when it doesn’t fall in place
With the music in my head,
I will never listen to what you have to say.
Because I have taught myself to
Get used to the noise which never leaves me alone.
And yet I am so used to being on my own,
That the noise is the only thing I want to hear.
Not your voice, I’m sorry, not your voice; but
The sound of the flickering street lights
When I walk down a lonely road,
And the cars screeching as they rush past me.
The distant screams of children.
Voices, which don’t say anything.
The scratch of pen on paper,
When I try to write something and fail,
And the sound of the paper
Hitting the dustbin, and missing.
The sound of the cold harsh wind
Rushing through my hair,
The sound of thunder,
The sound of rain.
But don’t worry, I’m sorry, don’t worry.
I will shut off
These noises someday,
And listen to the sound I have fallen asleep to
On countless summer nights.
The sound of beautiful voices and rainstorms
Shutting off, the noisy summer nights.

The song outside

Watch the streets winding and winding, twisting and turning                                       And watch the people and their hurried footsteps                                                   running along the same lines, the same circles,                                                                In a dull monotonous song,                                                                                             oblivious to the melody.

Watch their faces, look at their cold eyes,                                                                     Staring directly ahead, unwavering, unfaltering,                                               Determined to block everything away.                                                                     Everything that is not the destination, but the journey,                                       Everything at fault, everything worth a second look;                                           Everything that is not straight out from a book.

Listen, listen to the speeding cars.                                                                             Tirelessly, infinitely, moving along the highway.                                                         Listen to the sounds of life.                                                                                            Listen to the traffic jams, and the long drives.

And you’ll find that you are still looking, still listening,                                                 To this blissful symphony, so beautiful, yet so wrong.

So look out the window once,

And try to sing along.