Men are Made of Music

I –

I was a man of reason in the most insufferable sense. There wasn’t a wonder in the world I couldn’t coldly rationalize. That was, until I found myself so interlocked in loving arms and ruby hair that all that rationality went and melted right away. It was sleepy time, but we were content to cuddle wide awake. The candle on the nightstand died, but we didn’t mind the dark. A warm wind and a soft song complemented our embrace.

I held her and beheld her dreaminess all night. Morning marched on us much too soon. Only I opened an eye, and just like that, the dream was gone. Yesterday, maybe, it’d been real. Not today.

What an agony it is to discover love too early.

II –

A year had passed, and though alone, I’d grown so god-intoxicated that I rarely even realized. Bored too easily, excited too sparingly – long my bane and then her final straw – and now it was what sent me running to the wilderness in search of lost life. There was something inside, and I needed it so much, and so far, I knew of only nature’s power to deliver. And so, I drove, evermore faraway, and soon, I reached the woods I’d wished.

I sought out oaks and fought for flowers. I witnessed scents of sounds and touched sights of thoughts. I sat in meadows and flew into the sun. I heard the world’s warriors’ joyous chorus.

What a thrill it is to feel an invisible embrace.

III –

The grizzled old man within beseeched me to reclaim his youth before it was too late. A poet told him from forgotten songs to go again into the wild. I knew that it alone could match all my ambitions and fulfill my thrills. Just like that, then, I became another blue-eyed son of a bitch on a quest for adventure.

Thus it was that I set out, past empty highway diamonds, en route to misty mountains, with no intention ever to return. About a half of me was thrilled to forage for fulfilment on my own. The other half just wished for one with whom to share some dull despondency.

What an irony it is to have a trillion tales and not a single listener.

IV –

A stranger in a strange world. That was beginning to be how I liked it. From a brand-new vantage point in unfamiliar foothills, only halfway unpacked, I decided I’d try my magic hand at an even bolder journey. I was always meant to be more than just the shadow of dead men. Now, racing toward break of day, riding horses all the way, I was going to prove it.

A lonely mountain lay before me, and I knew what I had to do. I blazed the trail. I braved the range’s dangers. I stood up to the sky. I’d thought my golden age long withered away. Turns out, it’d just taken time to blossom.

What a triumph it is to be sucked into the summit.