Scout on Standards/Thursday

 

I don’t need their theme to play in the background. I don’t need to hear their whispers to know that they speak about me. I don’t need to hear their footsteps to know that they run from me. I don’t need anything. I can hear the tapping of the clock just fine, the drums just fine, the stomping just fine, the waves just fine. I don’t want to be able to read their lips or know the length of their stride. The drums are loud enough to drown the sound of my ignorance. They asked me what I thought about love, and I told them I didn’t want it. Because the ones who told me they loved me whispered and ran and sang in the background of my misery.

I heard their sultry piano on a long Wednesday afternoon. They drowned the clock moving backward and the drums blasting a Phil Collins song. I shook my head, hoping that my earbuds could come loose and the hair from my scalp could erase the sharp notes. The smooth solo drifted through the hardly open window, and I forgot what I did and didn’t need. I promised myself it would be the last time I would be fooled by the growing heat in my heart. The notes floated down the flight of stairs, and I with them, down to the streets full of flats and skyscrapers fighting for the air’s real estate, knowing that the intoxicating theme of the piano would beat both out. Hot air and the smell of burnt hot dogs with a side of watered-down coffee carry me to the apartment I had avoided like my true emotions. Enter, they call out to me, enter, because we know you can’t resist the comforting fall from paradise. In their yellow walls, I revel in the sound of their conniving whispers, their disgusted steps, and the bored tunes of the creaking piano.

We love you, they tell me, and I know the reason I returned wasn’t because I believed them but because I couldn’t resist the feeling that this was the brightest room I could be in. Sure, the yellow matched the mustard of the hot dogs, and the floors of the watery coffee, but I liked the familiarity of it. I’d gotten a peek into a neighbor’s room once, and the pristine white was blinding, deafening, overwhelming. Here, the scratchy piano and cracking laughs weren’t above my height. I owned just enough real estate in the sky to fly here, and no one could make me feel like I didn’t deserve it. I want their theme, whispers, and footsteps. I need the ticking of the clock, the drums, and the stomping of the feet. Let them all fight for my mind on Thursday. Today, this yellow room is enough.