Sum

It was the late spring but all
she could think about was summer
and how far she planned to run away
the first chance that she saw
they didn’t care.
It wasn’t fair how she was floating
in the shuffle of a thousand others
in a struggle not to drown within the crowd.
It was a simple song made with
piano keys and beer she stole
off the clearance shelf at the
corner store she wasn’t allowed into.
Out of nerves she pressed her thumb
into the sharp part of her car keys
until it broke through and the whole
wound tasted like two different kinds of metal.
It slowed her down at practice
where her digits danced from one key to the next
but through the pain there was a vision
for what she never thought to try
when her day dreams had a sum greater than nothing.
She plugged her keyboard
into the amplifier she borrowed
from her brother’s band
and with her bleeding bandaged hand
she let that sleeping town
have everything she couldn’t
hold within in her.