Piano

A piano you can’t touch
the music is trapped
your hands are itching
but those keys remain hostage
locked in prison walls of their beauty
that maple, gleaming beauty
too lovely to handle too magical to hear
but I am begging you to touch that body
feel those lines and embrace those curves
because that lady in the corner of their parlor
is screaming to be heard
scratch the finish
and dirty the notes
because jazz wasn’t born in a posh room
playing by the rules and keeping to a metronome
ticka, ticka, boom, are the words rebelling out
but they hold me in keeping my back straight and my fingers poised
when all I want is to fly across the ivory sea
and plummet into the darkest black keys
you ever did feel
So let me play my song the way I feel it in my bones
Because God didn’t craft no imperfections
And his architecture frame of my skeleton
Was no mistake
I twitch with the rhythm
And bounce with the beat
Hearing it all play out
Ticka
Ticka
boom
In pre-school I learned to count numbers
My teacher would line up toys in a row
And we’d show just how much we knew
1,2,3,4,5
In High school I learned to add lines
Find the root and the square and make it all fit
But when did they teach me to count syllables?
To hear the rhythm in the word and not let go
To hold on to the sounds, dividing and multiplying rearranging
Scrambling and focusing so hard I’m sorry what were you saying?
The drum ticked off on my hands moving and twitching playing the piano
On invisible keys
I molded and melded until the square peg fit in the round hole
Until your sentence
That tiny comment you made two minutes ago
Was reworked
Reconfigured to play on my hand in the beat of ten
Perfect harmony
A symphony of my own
But then it would come again
The letters and the numbers and the need to keep it all in line
It was fatal
I lost time and just kept counting
I would say hey
One
You’d look me in the eye and say hey what’s up?
Two three four
But that’s not enough
There are links left out of that chain
And I don’t feel safe to climb higher
Without them to keep me secure
So I pick it up stretch it out and count it
In ways that would make Shakespeare beam
With an iambic pentameter straight out of the book
cutting it apart and sewing it back together
my fingers stitch through the air
Hey
One
Hey Wha-t’s u-p
Five
The releasing number five
The sequence is complete and I can breathe
But I know it’s coming again
I live under a rolling thunder
And a darkening sky that tells of hurricanes and tornadoes
Great dangers whipping my way
Any moment the sky will crack, the clouds will break
Your lips will part and I’ll be running again
Trying to keep up with your words and hurling them back in
Five, ten, fifteen, twenty
But this challenge doesn’t scare me
And this cross you say I’m baring
Is just a hunk of wood I’m hauling
To fuel my artistic fire
So don’t judge me because I’m moving at speeds you and that sports car only dream of
And don’t label me for counting letters instead of numbers because
I am perfect
I can keep a beat on these fingers like you’ve never heard
An insanity so personal you’ll never here my masterpiece
But it’s there
Right in tune with the beating of my heart
My hands tick off, ticka, ticka, boom
As the white keys begin to dance
because I’m obsessed with the numbers
compulsive about the rhythm
and I disorder all your words
OCD is my label
An Outrageously Creative Diva
And that is something we can both count on