Faint notes of the piano drift up,
3 stories, 2 stairwells, 31 stairs by one sound wave, maybe two,
And delicately meet my ear.
I recognized the pattern, the whisper of the second chord following the first,
The fluctuating intensities, the dynamics.
"Too well," I remember thinking; I recognized it too well.
Even fluctuating sound waves that cut through still, unmoving air need change, I thought.
But what was I to do?
It seemed that only those notes were allowed to protrude, to exert their unwanted and unyielding influence.
Only those notes I hear, only those notes seem to have sound.
It seems every time I try to object, to use my voice as loud as it goes,
Those fluctuating intensities, those dynamics drown me out,
Reduce me to a whisper.
Only this whisper, my whisper, it doesn't have a pattern that is remembered,
It doesn't meet an ear delicately for it is shooed away,
It "doesn't deserve" to have a single sound wave as it would, either way, be ignored,
It doesn't travel up 1 story, much less 3,
Nor up 1 stairwell, much less 2,
Nor up 1 stair, much less 31.
So I let the notes drift on,
I leave the notes with their unyielding influence over the air, over my voice,
I close my eyes,
And suddenly those notes, once faint,
Are blaring in chaos.