[Poem] The Soloist

The Soloist

I don’t know of anything lonelier than singing alone

No, hear me out!
Notes are not made to go in—
They are not made to stick to my masticating skin,
Don’t you hear?

Come closer, please!
This note is a call—
This line my flesh—
That must be perfected in fifths–Listen! Oh, please listen!

It’s almost over!
—That risks dying unheard—
In the drowning chambers of this great soprano heart—
(tuned again to that dead-streaming choir, statically a part)
—singing into this white, blank, wall.

You didn’t stay. I tap silence,
why continue?

There is nothing lonelier than singing alone,
an autotuned soul