Asleep Under the Piano (A Tribute to My Uncle)

I can still hear those notes you used to play.

Day in and day out, for as long as I can remember, you would sit at that piano and pour out your heart, bleed out the notes, breathe life into the music.

You'd play other instruments, too sometimes. Violin, flute, cello, but that piano was everything. You would've lost it all just to keep that piano. Your car, your computer, your paintings, your library, your food, your house, and even yourself. And I wouldn't have minded.

I can remember the days when I was little, when you'd sit me down beside you and I would watch your hands, your long slender fingers, fly over the keys. I wanted to be able to do the same, and you tried to teach me, but I was too young. I still want to learn.

I remember what you used to do in the sleepy afternoons. You'd pour me a glass of apple juice, which I'd gulp down, and then you would take your seat. I would watch you with so much interest, until, halfway through, I would grab my blanket and curl up under that great wooden instrument, enveloped in love and music. And I was content, and I hope you were too.

The music still swirls in my head every day. I sit down at that piano and play just a few keys-- no song in mind, I just need to hear what a piano sounds like again. It's not that I forgot, it's that I was lonely.

I stare at the music in front of me and listen. I can hear it, in the back of my head, you playing it, but I can't possibly play it. These notes are foreign to me, and the longer I stare the more confused I become.

I suppose I'm not fit for this, it's not my role. My role was to lay under the piano, a child born of your music, and your role was to always play.