I catch you singing, little parts, not a whole song; I think it's pieces of three or four different songs, even though they all seem like one. Your hair falling forwards over your shoulders; it's probably brushing into or across your eyes. I can't know which; and you don't see me. Your voice has always been beautiful, but it's more beautiful to me now that I can hear the things touching the edges of words you're singing.
It doesn't feel like I'm spying on you, though I think it would were you someone else and I were someone else. But you're you and I'm me. And you're singing. And I like this best of all: when you're singing for yourself. The way the notes come out when you're by yourself reminds me of the way you breathe in between kisses; they're little nudging things that I want to catch. Though I know the reason I love them so much is because I can't catch them.
I come a little closer to you so I can hear the songs you're moving between. I have let myself into your house and now I'm in your doorway. You'll hear me soon; I'm sure of it. But for now you're still turned to your work, at your desk.
I hear now that it's not three or four songs; it's just two. You're singing them both, and it sounds almost lazy: it would be lazy to anyone else. But I know you're not being lazy. I can hear the way you turn from one line to another in between songs with a carefulness that's just like your smile. The songs are songs you've sung for me. I hear brought me down and I love you I love you I love you like never before, and I wonder why I have never before thought of how those two songs go together. You move between them like they're one song.
And I realize they are one song, almost; they're the two songs that together make a whole thing that you were trying to say to me.
Your voice, now, reminds me of the first time you called me honey. It's a name I have only ever once called you back, and that was because I was trying to make you understand something so important. The words in my mouth had felt like they had razor edges; like they could bounce right off the lockers around us and hurt you more than once. So I started but, honey, because the look on your face wasn't like anything I had seen before.
It's your word, though, and it's my favorite thing you call me, because you only do it when we're alone. Everyone knows now that you're mine and I'm yours, but like your alone-singing, some things are just for me.
