Small Worlds

I’m asking her about the gaps where language fails us. I want to know because those stories are the making of me.

He leaves me to carry the shame of a man who doesn’t know how to say how he feels, or rather, doesn’t know how to bridge the gap between feeling and expression, and fears trying, fears what he might find out about himself. He leaves me standing there, holding the shame of a son whose father won’t speak to him.

She shakes her head, and is quiet for a moment, like she’s struggling for the words, like her anger is returning, which is just love in another body.

Grief never ends, but we find a way to walk in the light someone has left behind, rather than living in pain’s shadow.

I’ve been trying to hear my own song again, picking up my trumpet almost every day, sending sounds into the world. She kisses me and the world quietens. This closeness, this brief intimacy, feels final, feels like goodbye.

when you sample, it’s not just sounds you’re repurposing, but feeling. You’re taking whatever was present in the room on recording, or whatever was on the heart of the artists in those moments of conception.

The music conjures a time when I was more open, a time when I had more faith. I only want to remember. I don’t want to forget.

don’t feel like myself, or rather, I don’t like this version of me, who’s insecure and rarely at ease, who doesn’t know how to dismantle his loneliness.

‘What will you two do if you have to leave each other?’ Mum asks, careful and tender. ‘If we have to . . . we’ll work it out.’