the first hard kill

because your hands are still beautiful splayed across the strings like that they remind me of the way they danced over the buttons on my jeans and the fabric of my shirt, like i was a gift you could not wait until Christmas to open.

i remember the taste of life from inside your mouth, bootlegged beer and cigarrettes - the tragedy of life at fifteen is that you don't yet know that you'll miss those moments, making out in the backseat, on the floor, saying "no", "no", "no" as though it were your whole life you were about to give up and the ache was too good to complete...

and now driving home, the top down and the music loud, i remember years later when we were friends, me still a silly girl, hiding behind smoke and mirrors, still madly in love and hoping, hoping, hoping, hoping that you would never forget the songs you wrote for me ....

and i dreamed of the day when you would pull up to my window and tell me we were leaving

~i'm running away ~ you'd say ~ come with me~

and i would throw out my bag and and gather all of my faith and leap onto the horizon with you because we both knew that the secret is music first

the words will come ...but the music is always first