MELODIES OF NEED
Late July, three years ago.
Songwriting had been my favourite hobby for years. Oh, the joy of creating something. But the pleasure was always tainted by fear. Creating is a vulnerable process if you write from the heart. Any criticism or disapproval at that point felt like a deadly wound. So, I always guarded my writing-in-progress fiercely.
Something changed during that summer.
I had never written English song lyrics before.
Neither had I co-written anything with anyone.
I did know because this particular person made me feel safe.
We wrote the lyrics for ‘Melodies of need’ together, and I made the music.
But the strange thing was, I hadn’t even met my co-writer in real life.
We worked on video calls, as appropriate in the age of COVID-19. We shot video footage for a future music video around where we lived. Much later, I found the time to make one of my crude homemade recordings of the song and an equally homemade video.
I met her in real life later that year.
She’s my wife now.
Enveloped in a velvet dream
She’s the pattern of my theme
I’m weaving melodies of need
Around her body, then concede
When the early morning wakes me like a scream
Eat the leaden Tuesday light
Drink the freeze or flee or fight
Feeling shattered, act the part
Hide the hunger in my heart
Needing nothing but the one who’s out of sight
Missing moments touch my soul
Lacking laughter leaves a hole
Absent eyes can’t see the shadow of my fear
Cannot breathe without her in my life
Cannot bear the struggle and the strife
I will bleed until she heals my heart
She’s placing seashells on the shore
Fingers numb, her mind is raw
Feeling time is running out
Hope is strangled by her doubt
Needing someone there to fill her sweetest core
But this ocean will divide
Let my whisper be her guide
To the secret place where she’ll be truly loved
In the world we will invent
She’s my blueprint of intent
To walk the sands until I find
The desert island of her mind
Her hidden senses filled with snapshots of our scent
Missing moments make me grow
Lacking laughter lets me glow
Absent eyes will see my beacon in the dark
I can breathe when she completes my life
I can bear the struggle and the strife
I can bleed until she hears my heart
