The Music in Me

Some contemporary poetry for my loud quarantine thoughts.

There’s a band playing behind me when I walk.

I’m dancing and stepping and there’s fanfare all around,

Life is cheering me on.

Days and nights filled with bursts of joy, 

I am invincible.

Riding the high of my own positivity comes and goes as quickly as the song ends. 

It’s almost hysterical, 

I feel it coming up in my throat, a giddy sense of expectation.

I am happy, even just for the time being. 

I bounce and waltz and skip, I dance through a maze of words and thoughts and fears

Trying to hold onto the music that so fleetingly keeps me off the ground.

When I come back down I think, 

Was the air keeping my feet kicking steadier than the firm ground beneath my feet? 

Chained to my own private reality,

A crescendo of surface tension,

Pressure building and building and finally breaking.

The song ends. 

Each step takes a thought, 

And each thought takes a breath,

And each breath takes a part of me. 

I have music cheering me on, 

That way I can’t hear how the voice in my head is telling me 

I am not as invincible

As I pretend to be.