in the absence of a soundtrack

falling backwards down a stairwell with no score to underlie the obvious entertainment for all those watching.

in the absence of a soundtrack to life,

we walk silently,

yelling, screaming, spitting, fighting & dragging each other

through this “nasty, brutish & short”

existence,

without the all-encompassing symphonies of dramatic films,

the eerie minimalistic piano & acute

industrial beats of horror flicks,

our relationships churn whitewater rock-filled rivers,

chaotic & self-destructive,

with no death metal or hardcore to

accompany---

our depressing, slobber-ridden sob-stories,

lay face-down-drunk at the bar carrying no minor chords or

cigarette-laden blues to support us,

and if we are lucky enough,

ever since our hormones began to run rampant,

we dance a spontaneous idiosyncratic jazz but

neither bird or coltrane are able to come with us in our melancholy---

instead, we take each punch wielded,

upside the face

quietly, holding not the gritty reality of our entropy found in the frank poetic rhyme of

rap,

no,

it does not form a backdrop of strength behind us when a climatic moment hits,

when we could all really use it.

 

in the absence of a soundtrack,

our own actions, be them compassionate or

murderous,

they pound us back into the granules of stardust just as quickly as we came---

the words that come as supplementary

do not weave an actual melody,

one which we all might try & hum together---

our individual lives are silent movies

shelved & hardly watched by anyone but the characters found within---

alone, irrelevant & disappearing rapidly as the credits start to climb,

we fade out as curbed mimes

persistently trying to make rhythms with the tapping of our

tormented

fingers.