The Unfinished Symphony

The record plays - sounds of love; words that touch the heart. I reach for you with all my being and, finding I still cannot touch you I sit down to cover paper with my song to you. A piece of paper - starchy white with tiny, symmetrical blue veins running across. An impersonal piece of paper that obligingly holds my ink-blotched words so that I may gaze at them and wonder at their lack of saying what I mean to say. I run my hand across the page and wish it were you I was touching. I wish each quiet scratch of the pen on parchment was the sound of your voice. And, because not the page nor the words nor the sound is you - I cross out everything I've written, crumple the page and throw it away. The room is silent now. The record has quit turning. The needle is in its cradle. And I find that tonight I have no song. Not on paper. Only within me. And, tomorrow, I'll again reach out to touch you.