All I Can Muster…
By: Tom Grasso
Tags: Truth, Lyrics, Love, Romance, Surrender

All I Can Muster…

The morning starts like any other. We awaken to start our daily ritual, bad music playing through the radio mixing with the shower’s sound on the other side of the bathroom door. I sit, alone on the wrong side of that door, waiting for your return.

A rush of emotion comes, and I can feel the wave building within me like a slow crescendo to a symphony. I just sit and embrace it. It’s certainly better than what is coming from the box on your nightstand and much better than the stories I hear when you are gone.

As with most mornings like these, the music within me is beautiful. There is no angst today, and the melody calms me even as the tempo frustrates me. Soon, I feel my heart sway to the beat. The sound is such a sweet mixture, any one part of which would be beautiful unto itself. Yet together, the music impresses upon my world the color of something wonderful — the magical sense of the very thing missing from my life. All this music needs is lyrics.

Ah, lyrics. I get it, and I know such things.

I slow my breathing to focus on the magic playing within me. What I see and hear is heaven, the sort of thing that happens when a man who has fought wars finds reason for his calling. I see you in my mind, your smile and the way your hair flows around your face creating sounds I love to hear. I see your walk, and feel the smile that comes when I watch you move. I see your eyes glisten with joy as you describe something you love.

I also feel the agony of a man who is not yet one of those things. A man who is but another standing in a line, yet a man who is so much different than anyone you’ve ever known. I start this song with a prayer, one that hopes you will see through the fog that lesser men have created, and know finally the truth of something great.

The lyrics are coming, I can feel them. My prayer subsides with a sigh, and my heart returns to the words. What is it I want to say? What is it that you will understand? Will you understand what I want to say?

I know where you have been, I’ve been there too. I know the walls that you have built, I’ve built them too. I know the fear that you feel, I feel it too. I’ve felt something else though, something that silences the noise and lifts me up off the ground. I feel it when you touch me. I feel it when you walk into the room. It’s there when you talk to me, when you send me messages across the wire, when you laugh, when you talk, and when you dance to music only you can hear. I feel it all, every second I am with you and every minute my mind wonders off to thoughts of you.

I wish you could feel that with me. There is no greater feeling in the world, and no worse when it is felt alone.

Still, the symphony goes on and the lyrics are created. I will carry you through fire but never force you from walking when you can. Those things that you have built in the challenged life you’ve lived are things I never want to take from you. You can always ride the bike you’ve learned to ride, my dear. Perhaps now, though, you need not ride alone.

The shower goes silent, and soon I will be able to sing this song to you. In the rush of madness echoing in my head I seek to sing from the top, realizing then that there is no beginning or end to this song. It is the beginning and the end, it is the everything.

I hear the door begin to open. The flow of joy explodes from my chest. I cannot wait to see you smile, to hear your voice, and to share with you this song. I rise, and turn to meet you as you cross the threshold.

We embrace, and I wonder if you can feel the song pounding from my chest. We kiss, and I wonder if you can taste the desire that is overflowing within me. I look into your eyes and feel the drum roll, and I open my mouth to the building explosion of music.

“Good morning,” is all that I can muster.

Small talk is all that I can utter. The song I’ve felt, the music I have lived, the truth of my existence in this moment lost to the simplicity of human interaction. The heart is strong beyond all measure; the soul is powerful beyond all imagination. But the man? The man is weak and too afraid his song will only echo off the walls that you have built.

Silence is now the song I sing to you. I sense that for all the strength that you have built, for all the resilience that has lifted you up from the ashes, this song would be your kryptonite. Perhaps now is not the time for such beauty.

The urge builds, however. I want to grab your face gently in my strong hands and tell you all that is inside me. I want to write the prose that makes angels dance in heaven and demons hide deep within the shadows. I want to hold you, make love, leave you with a quivering that begs for more. I want you to know that I was there, and that I will not soon leave the deepest places within you.

“Be safe today, and have a good one,” is all that I can muster. What a coward I’ve become.

Superman needed the Sun to fly. My heart needs yours to speak its truth. Though I could stand strong in front of a million people and shout my truth in ways that defy my ability, I crumble silently before you and must leave to catch my breath. Though I’ve slayed a hundred dragons and left their carcasses to rot, a butterfly has sent me reeling to my knees.

I fear no man. Yet before you all I can muster is a feeble truth that cannot match the symphony within me. I falter, knowing I have no choice but to wait for you to hear the music too. If you ever do.

The day is young though. The sky is still dark and the Sun has not yet risen. What has started as a dream has so much promise yet to reveal itself. I cannot worry about what is yet to be. I have more lyrics to write and more songs to give my life to. Though I seek to fill the most empty parts of me, I cannot live only to see that thirst quenched. There are the million I must speak to, and the hundred I must battle. I must be at my best to live my purpose, and give that best to know my truth.

It is not how this day has started that will define it, nor is it how it ends. What makes this day what it is will be the journey from one to the other. If that is all I can muster than I will say I have lived this day to the fullest, and hope to start another morning writing you the lyrics I hope you’ll hear.

If you want to hear them.