I played the same song four times in a row
and called it thinking.
The tape hissed a little before the drums came in.
I liked that part.
It sounded like weather trying to get through the walls.
Then the singer came on full of hurt and swagger
like he had been born in tight black jeans
with one hand already reaching for trouble.
I sat on the floor with my back against the bed
and let the whole thing hit again.
The same line.
The same guitar.
The same chorus acting like pain could be made noble
if it was loud enough.
Maybe that is why I kept playing it.
Not for the song.
For permission.
There are nights when a person does not want comfort.
He wants company that sounds worse than he feels
so he can point at it in the dark and think
at least I am not the only fool making a cathedral out of this.
The tape turned and clicked.
I hit rewind.
That hard, fast whir
sounded almost better than the song itself,
like time going backward in a little black machine,
like somebody had built a way
to take a ruined three minutes
and make it happen again on purpose.
I think I understood then,
without saying it right,
that some people keep hurting a thing
by replaying it.
Not to heal it.
Not to solve it.
Just to hear the shape of it one more time
and prove it happened exactly the way it felt.
That was me on the carpet,
one hand on the player,
staring at the dark window
like somebody in a bad music video,
letting a song I did not write
say everything I was too proud to say out loud.