When Music Doesn’t Answer

What would I do without my music—
the question lingers still,
a note held in an empty room,
a bird against the sill.

It used to find me easily,
like rain upon dry ground,
a chord would touch the ache in me
and soften it with sound.

But now the song just echoes on
through corridors of bone,
and I go searching through the notes
for meanings of my own.

I listen for the old relief,
the warmth I used to know,
but sometimes music only names
the hurt it cannot hold.

The melody still reaches me,
but faintly, from afar,
like moonlight through a windowpane,
like light behind a scar.

And still, I do not turn away,
though comfort has grown thin;
I press my ear against the song
and wait to hear within.

For even when it fails to heal,
when silence settles deep,
the echo proves I’m still alive—
still longing, still listening.