The Patient Sikh: Part Five---Your Song

This is an excerpt from a novel. For reference read the following posts: The Patient Sikh—Part One,The Patient Sikh: Part Two–The Wonder Years,The Patient Sikh: Part Three–SonnyThe Patient Sikh: Part Four-- Song LyricsA firefly in his hair, by the screened in porch. I don’t remember much, but I remember that. My dead hyacinth plant stands next to the window. It died in the light. There was three of us, me and you, and the person we became when we were together. That day Sonny stood outside my house, waiting for me at the door.Today he is singing, at a small locale in Detroit. I notice small things, the way he moved his lips to create the sound s. He sang as if the wind was in him, he stood like he owned the air. Maybe they call that presence. Maybe I would be nothing without the pain he caused me.His guitar was older but his hands knew every precious note. I look at his friends and all their lives with weed and parties. Could I be a part of that? Could I stand here and let him be himself while he could never really see me in the crowd.I wasn’t just a fan. I wasn’t just a friend. Who am I to you? Oh music man, what do you say? Which of me do you love? Do you love us or just me? Decide something…make a decision to walk with me or away from me.Pay attention to the small circles that my mouth goes in as I try to sing with you. Watch me be you. Stand with me in a crazy world that does not recognize that we are simple, simple things make me happy. Like your face.You are sweaty and your forehead shines in the light. When you sing you become another man, and I become another woman. I am standing, waiting for you to take me away. Take me away from all this.Don’t love me out of kindness, Sonny. We need to stop being polite. I want your mean soul to know my darkest corners and my sharpest edges. You are empty, but I can never see that. I know now, only after, that you are an empty man.Empty of music. Empty of thought. You only sing to make the space more bearable. It is unbearable isn’t it, the lightness of being? You were my light, now you pervade my darkness. You were the envelope in my soul I never opened up. Now I read your letter to my heart, and it said nothing, a blank page.You are nothing. I am awake, I’m fucking more awake than god is. He is more dead compared to me. I see you. I finally see you. And I know that you will never really see me. You are a musical magician, making melodies that disappear in the night.Disappear in my heart. You are gone. You left the building. You left the body.*Sonny stood next to me as I screamed his name in his ear. There was a loud very bad band playing at the dive bar in Detroit. We are here, I thought then, and I think now. We are always standing in the same room not hearing each other speak.He looked away and listened as some groupie slipped him her number. That was it, the moment I knew. I knew I wasn’t sexy enough, or pretty enough, or thin enough to have him. He wanted that, that woman on the cover of a magazine.I am just me, I hardly understand fashion much less sexy talk. I don’t know how to be. What kind of woman should I be? I thought he wanted a good girl. He likes me because I seem like a good girl. But really he wants her, and her and her.I will not chase a man, but I will pine over him. I will spend my days thinking about him when he doesn’t give a shit about me. Proximity is sometimes enough. Just standing in the same room with him was sometimes enough for me.Did I love him then? Yeah, I loved him. Did he love me? He didn’t know what love was, I don’t think he ever did love anyone more than he loved himself. I would smoke his ganga and maybe give him a strip tease, if I were a different kind of woman.I don’t even know if I am a woman. I’m so used to being a girl.nina