Over time,
her mouth became 
a string instrument 
tightened with the tension 
of constraining her words.

Measures between her laughs
and ivory smiles grew longer,
each beat of silence 
lingering for just 
a note too long.

More often than not,
tired sandpaper lids scrape
against the white expanse
of her eyes, exposing the 
red vein strings
hiding beneath;
they turn the half note circles
below into shades 
of a minor key.

At night,
her heart thrums to the rhythm
of a staccato symphony:
rising, rising, rising,
as if her conductor brain
commands it -
faster, faster, faster.

Frantic thoughts 
create a polyphonic sound
of worry and dejection -
melodic harmonies to the
hasty trills within her 
xylophone ribcage

These sounds echo 
in the acoustics of her skull 
like the clicks 
of an 
off
beat 
metronome.

---

Prompt: “Write about a change you have noticed in your lifetime, but write only about the things that embody or illustrate this change. It might be a change you have noticed in a friendship, in the body of a loved one, in your hometown…” (Pagh 79)

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