How to Listen to Music, in the style of Robert Delarosa
1. Close your eyes.
2. Put your phone on silent.
3. Try to forget about your girlfriend.
4. Pay attention to everything. The uncomfortable feeling of the plastic seat on your ass. The hair on the arm of the man sitting next to you. The beat of your heart. The nonbeat of your heart. The cotton of your shirt. The wisps of your hair that you're supposed to cut and will not cut against your cheeks. The hellfire coming from the sun through the window that isn't closed. The driving time of a bus ride from here to anywhere that isn't Texas. The color blue. The thoughts in your head about girls. Not weird ones. About your girlfriend who is too much and all you could want at the same time, and maybe just a demon in angel's clothing, or maybe it's the other way around. About church and Xavier and Kiana Wilson and your friend who is a girl who is beautiful.
5. Try to forget about your girlfriend. Think about the friend.
6. Think the friend is wonderful. Cool. Exceptional. Think how you've never met a girl who invited you to her bedroom like it was no big deal. Like she didn't expect something from you. Like she wasn't going to crack you open if you didn't give it to her anyway.
7. Try to forget about your fucking girlfriend. Forget about your friend.
8. Hear the music. How it sews together, like fabric or skin. Skin and fabric. Notes and his ears. How come there's no AC in this fucking house?
9. Think nothing. Feel nothing. Be nothing.
10. Become a violin. Or a cello or a viola. A double bass. A crescendo punching through the crowd. No blood bursts to the surface.
11. She punched you once. In the face, hard enough so everything bled. And kissed you afterwards so you almost forgot. Almost.
12. "It's called Waltz of the Flowers," someone whispers. "The composer's Chai-tea-skee, or something. I don't even fuck with classical, but this song is amazing."
13. Waltz. There's a whole ball behind your eyes, and there are flowers hanging from chandeliers and stuck to the walls. You wear a nice suit and you waltz to LL Cool J with a pretty girl that doesn't call you stupid when you step on her toes. Who do you love?
14. There is another girl who does. She break her champagne glass against your head before crashing through the ceiling. You hold the strings left on your sleeves by her velvet dress and cry like a little bitch. Like the kind your mother would be disappointed in.
15. Crescendo again. All is right with the world.
16. Open your eyes. Find the girl. She's on a different planet. A new one, orbiting the sun just far away enough, where they all read and peak a language that doesn't make sense except when it's played by fifty odd people who get it. Listened to by one hundred people who do, don't, want to.
17. 37 missed calls from The Love of my stupid life. One text message: Robert?
18. Watch all the flowers hanging from chandeliers fall, watch them peel off the walls. She looks at you, the other girl, who didn't mind when you stepped on her toes, while you run away. It's your turn to crash through the ceiling. You leave her with half your heart and nothing else.
• • •
NIA & ROBERT: A PLAYLIST
waltz of the flowers tchaikovsky
golden girl frank ocean
lottery kali uchis
the girl next door tomppabeats
sabor a mi kali uchis
advice kehlani
dark red steve lacy
violet daniel caesar
we belong together los lobos
YOU ARE READING
roberto & nia
Short Story"your heart is soft to the touch; i think i'll love you forever."
