Captivating

She makes music with nothing but her smile.

It wraps around you like mist, like fog, so you can't see anything else,

and you are blind to the world,

but you can hear her music and that is enough.

On the days when she lets her starved fingers drift over bone-white and pitch-black keys,

and makes something beautiful,

you're captivated.

She can't step away from the instrument,

and you can't step away from the sound.

On the days when she takes her bruised fingers to the strings and sets the wood against her chin,

you're lost.

She spills to you everything she has never known the words for,

not in her language, and not in yours,

but something so sharply clear it is unmistakable.

But the days she opens her mouth and lets her choked voice sing,

those are the days you forget how to breathe,

the days you know nothing but the thrall of her song on your bones and blood.

She hates that even your eyes sing back to her, with crystal tears, with stinging wetness.

She kisses it away but she keeps singing and that is all you need, to hear her sing.

But on most days, her simplest song is that smile,

and you are happy with it.