empire

{ musical, pts. I, II, & III }

pt. I: symphony

we were a whirlwind of color when we met, fingers in hair and mouths on necks and hands on lower backs, i don't remember a morning i didn't wake up tangled in your arms, and i liked to think of that time as the beginning of a song, when the sounds are still building and the beat hasn't quite been established and the listener is still deciding whether he likes it or not, and i liked to think that we were the kind of song that burst into beautiful piano chords and guitar strings and harsh voices that were somehow melodic, i liked to think that's what our bodies represented, two lovely verses in a lovely song, rhythmic but thrilling, that's what the beginning was like, and i remember telling you that, and i remember you laughing, but i didn't mind because i liked your laugh and i liked to pretend like it was part of the beat, we were the pleasant beginning of a pleasant song and i knew the world was ready for us but it didn't know it yet, and our first days were a mess of smudged lipstick and mismatched buttons and various empty bottles of liquor, but i liked it and i liked the thought of you sleeping in my bed when i wasn't there and i liked the thought of coming home to you waiting for me on the sofa and i liked the thought of just taking your hand and leading you right back to the bed we still hadn't made from the night before

pt. II: crescendo

we built right to a burst of music, we did, right to a spiraling black hole that consisted of the same routine over and over again, the same pointless fight followed by the same irresistible handful of hours in bed followed by the same pointless fight, and i kept telling myself it would pass, that we weren't going to stay trapped in this build of sound, that the beat would drop somewhere, that the beat had to drop somewhere, because that was how songs worked and that was how the songs on the radio went, they would build and build and build until the listener was on the edge of his seat and then they would plummet and crash and the car would be filled with infectious noises, and i would tell myself we were working toward that, we were getting there eventually, and i bit the inside of my cheek every time you shouted at me and i pretended like your hands were warm on my back even though they were stone cold and i let you kiss me drunkenly even when i was sober, because i wanted to go back to the beginning, back to where we were a whirlwind of color and the song was just starting, but i promised myself this was the build and the beat drop was around the corner and soon we would be swept up in lovely music and this would all just be a little hiccup, and i kept ignoring the part of my mind that told me this wasn't a buildup, it was a chorus, and it was going to keep coming round and round

pt. III: descent

by the end of it we were just hollow shells of one another, just the trailing bits of melody that a song left when it ended, just the tapered off notes that bled away slowly as though they were grains of sand being sifted through, and i tried to tell myself that the song would start again and we would dive back into that whirlwind of color and we would soon be tangled in each other's arms and smell of each other's scents and you would have my lipstick on your jaw and i would wear your shirt around my shoulders to slip out into the kitchen in the morning, and i tried to tell you that we were just in the middle of the song and soon it would pick up again and this was just the silly little soft spot where everything gets quiet to trick you for a moment before the singer bursts into the most incredible scream of singing, but you didn't believe me because you knew we'd already passed the chorus and we were nearing the ending sentiments and these were just the last handful of notes that had to be played out and we were almost toward the very last lyric and it was only a matter of deciding whether you would say it or i would, and i knew leading you back to the bed wouldn't help because it had been made already and neither of us wanted to mess it up this time but i tried anyway, and you kissed me but i could taste reluctance on your bottom lip and you could taste disappointment on my throat, but still we tried to tangle ourselves together but othis time the pieces didn't quite fit, and we ended up too much of a jumble, so the end of our song turned into more of a duet and we said those last lyrics together and i heard the swell of music inside my head as i watched you walk out the door and i pretended like the song would start again but i knew it wouldn't