The Melancholy First Step

It should have rained the day I left Detroit for the last time. The northern sky owed me that much. I composed “The Soundtrack of Rain” while flying over Ohio. I made entire notebooks of lists in an attempt to describe the sorrow that waded in my stomach; the broken-ness of my spirit. The dreariness that devoured our precious departing was all encompassing. I stared down at the contrast of my rich, crimson moccasins against the cold, black tile. It was so shiny and slick I gazed into the soul peering out of my reflection…all I remember is my berry lipstick and oh…those weary grey eyes. Even then I didn’t understand the entirety of what I would later compose. The past seven months have been a melancholy progression, throughout which I have recorded small vivid portions that have, until recently, been seeking a name.

“The Melancholy First Step”, that is what I have encountered in some way, shape or form every day since April came and demolished everything; destroyed compassion with vicious truth leaving no room for recovery.

This low introduces itself in peculiar ways. It is the division of entanglement, the chain-link barrier between two broken, brow-beaten friends, the shift away as one body drifts towards the static frenzy of the terminal and the other stands barren and lifeless. It is the motion of weary toes, as they angle outward and the miles begin- when distance shrouds every sense, when the impending first breath apart arrives. It hangs heavy in still air, when one body inches further away from the vibrancy of yesterday-when the intertwined grew together rather than mangled, when the ignited breathed together rather than stifled out. It is the pause that courses through the space between words, and it is the waiting that steals breath…for eyes to be out of sight, before body escapes then spirit, then memory. It is the ocean between quiet houses that pours itself into the jars of a last kiss. It is as immanent as death; it is unpredictable and unforgiving. It plays the minor keys that wrap themselves up-that drift to sleep on the heart, weighing heavy so as not to be forgotten. And when it is done with its song, the tired course comes…and all that words are left with is wonder.