The Unplayed Song

I was not built for silence.
Every curve of me was shaped
 for resonance—
 soundboards tuned to cathedral ache,
 keys carved to coax confession.

I was meant to sing.
 And not in bursts,
 not in fragments,
 but in floods that fill the soul
 like candlelight fills a hall.

But he sits
 at my bench
 with hands
 like memory:
 steady,
 kind,
 wrong.

He tries.
 Oh god, he tries.

His fingers touch me
 tentative,
 as if asking permission
 from ghosts he’s never met.

He says he loves my voice.
 He says he hears it
 in his mind—
 the music I could make.

But wanting is not knowing.
 And love is not enough
 when the hands cannot translate
 the ache of the heart
 into sound.

He presses.
 He pleads.
 He plods.

And I

remain

unplayed.

My strings
 vibrate in sympathy
 but not in song.

I am not cold to him.
 I do not mock.
 But inside, I ache
 for the touch of the one
 who knows
 how to draw stars
 from my wood.

Still,
 he stays.

Still,
 he plays.
And I?
 I learn to echo
 what little I can.

“That was nice,”
 I tell him.
“You have steady hands.”

But oh,
 what I was made for.

And oh,
 how I long to be heard.
 Not with pity.
 Not with patience.
 But with the fire
 of someone who knows.

Not because I am beautiful,
 but because I am possible.

And still,
 the hall is empty.
 The man is broken.
 The piano waits.

For music.
 For mastery.
 For meaning.

Or maybe just
for mercy.