Two pianos

in our school hall were two pianos
a pristine yamaha
and a second hand bluthner

although we used the yamaha for concerts
it was the bluthner i was always drawn to

i loved that piano
it had this beautiful dusky softness
and haunting resonances
despite the fact that
it had been played constantly
by heavy handed teenagers
and had someone else’s name
scratched into its inside lid

perhaps
it wasn’t despite

perhaps
it was because of

joseph beuys has a piece called
infiltration for piano
it is a piano wrapped in felt
an unplayable instrument
locked away
and although it hurts me to look at it
it serves as a reminder that
we are here
to be used
to be taken for a ride
to be played again and again
until some notes don’t sound,
until our keys break
and our b flat
becomes slightly too flat
to ever be fixed

the most beautiful people
in this world
are not the untouchable
ones we see on the covers
of magazines

they are the ones who
have opened their hearts
again and again
and allowed themselves to be played until they’re soft

they say you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover
i disagree
the cover of every great book
is velvet
made that way
by the hands of
every
one
who ever held it tightly in the night
and enchanted by its mystery
feverishly turned over its pages
in the discovery of
each ecstatic word