I needed a bassline. Something sure, something steady to tether my melody to.
Before bed, I’d pick out some music, songs to store the moments in. You didn’t get it but you wanted to and I remember your face, twilit somewhere between tolerance and yearning. So you fell into my night-time rhythm.
What did we listen to? What I remember now is your cautious unknotting as your fingertips stretched for the off button. Wait for the solo. Words, sleep-slurred and lost against your chest as I lightly tapped imaginary frets along your arm.
As I listen to the soundtrack of us now, I can hear the dissonance. But I remind myself that something is lost without the bassline. I remind myself of this as I long for some counterpoint. A rapturous melody to run alongside. Something intersecting, interdependent, an elated echo of each other’s song.
