I shouldn't have met your parents.
That's a dialogue that I'll recite to myself
until my mind becomes a symphony hall
and the echoing words are an orchestra in my soul.
But at this instant, I'm resistant to the facts
like how my mailbox isn't colorful enough or that
I have two too many tattoos for this neck of the woods.
Maybe it's my blackened lungs – the darkest thing you find out here.

And I'm too spent to implore metaphor
for any gratification, but I will assure this:
My heart still pounds with the crackle and
quake of waltzing flames and off-key
pulsations – just a friendly reminder that
light travels faster than sound.

And if my heartbeat were set to music,
the only language you really speak,
it would read quarter, quarter.
Rest.
Rest.
I don't think I could handle a full measure,
two at best? Not in this weather.

And truth is, I usually think this much, but
the cadence of conversation normally
overwhelms those silent sensations, however,
I'm not doing any talking. I mean we're kind of
just walking.

But those two rests have to be filled.