Nameless Music

Vertical scars mark the skin on her
shins and she searches for answers
in her memories, but doesn’t find them.
The chain on her bike breaks every year
at random times and recently she hasn’t
even been riding. She used to have
long conversations with a boy that was
always mowing people’s yards for money.
He wore old red shoes that used to be
his older brother’s, but made it clear
that it wasn’t because he was poor he just
liked the way they looked better than the
ones in the store. She showed him her
collection of music boxes including her
favorite that she kept hidden under the
stairs to her family’s cellar. It played a song
she didn’t know the name of, and when they
listened to it together he couldn’t think of
the name of it either.