Scattered light

Maybe I could know you

Writing music is like creating poetry compressed into invisible waves that sink deep into your skin, sticking like barbs, and implanting the words and feelings into your soul. It doesn't just touch you, or inspire you, it becomes you. It flows from your fingers, filling every cracked piece inside of you that you try to hide until you feel almost whole again and you don't care that your bills aren't being paid as long as that magic sound keeps you warm.

Music is subjective. It cannot be explained from one person to the next in the same way. It has to be experienced and shaped by individual consciousnesses. It's very much like people in that aspect.

Sometimes the chords are perfect, the harmonies are beautiful and others love them but to you it's just noise. Sometimes every tune is just noise, much like every person is just....there. Nothing special. No poetry and no warm embrace. Just an empty feeling in your gut as the notes pass you by like thousands of unfamiliar footsteps on the street.

But sometimes a certain melody grabs you, and it pulls you in so slowly that you don't notice it until the notes are pounding against your skull like an erratic heartbeat. Your loneliness starts to ebb with every gentle press of a key or stroke of a string and you piece together the pictures in your head until they become clear. And you realize that the image you've created isn't new to you. You've seen it every day for the past year.

The melody is bright and tender, like a fire, licking against your skin but never burning. The face in your mind is the small orange haired boy who lives across the hall that you've never spoken to but has somehow wrestled himself into your chest and wrapped his tiny arms around your heart.

And you don't understand it, but it feels right somehow.

And the song is just beginning.

***

I was eight years old when I picked up a guitar for the first time. I was in a music store with my dad who had strictly told me not to touch anything before slinking off to find an employee. I had planned to obey, I really had, but that was before I saw it. A simple mahogany stained acoustic guitar leaning against a metal stand, glinting almost seductively at me in the dimly lit store.

It was huge, much longer than my own scrawny limbs, but I lifted it as best I could and settled the rough strap around my neck, feeling its weight sit comfortably against my narrow shoulders. It felt like the piece to a puzzle I wasn't aware I was putting together clicking into place.

My fingers ran over the strings experimentally, gently strumming against them. The sound was too loud, reverberating in the empty room, and too flat. My fingers moved over the frets with more dexterity than an eight year old should possess, testing different pressures and positions to produce different sounds.

I can't remember how long I sat there or at what point my dad had slipped back into the room, watching me silently. I was consumed by the music.

I was roused by a sparse cough and a stern "Tobio". My blood ran cold as I spun around to see my dad standing in the doorway with his arms folded tightly across his broad chest.

"I-I'm sorry," I muttered, arms dropping to my sides, "it just looked so pretty."
I dropped my gaze to the floor; eyes trained on my Velcro light-up shoes, my face burning with the shame of disobedience.

"Where'd you learn to do that?" He asked gruffly. I listened closely for a hint of anger or pride but I heard neither.

"I didn't. I was just playing around with it," I admitted, glancing up to meet his eyes. I couldn't tell what he was thinking by his face either. The strap suddenly felt hot against my neck.