don’t forgive the lyrics

© “Those Nights”, by H. Walker

Try as I might, it’s hard to be in a forgiving mood with music when the lyrics tell everything you never wanted known… like

Bill Withers’ “I Don’t Know”…

which I can never forgive because I’ve felt as old as time within minutes heart filled love and heartbreak blues… I know; just didn’t know he did, too…

the opening chords make the swelling begin as the tearful revelation this time is worse than the last time and the time before that… and

I still listen like it’s brand new…

and Donny Hathaway’s “Magdalena” shouldn’t make me bawl but I do when he says

your love is like a razor / my heart is just a-scar

and it breaks down into wailing reserved for moments in front of covered mirrors; reserved for leave-takings into rooms closed up and away from everyone because the guttural emotion is more than a notion to share even with a best friend… and

there’s never anything wrong in the first place… I

just like the music and how rhythms and sounds and sentiments move me… I

listen with complete attention as if the first time… and

maybe this is the last moment these lines and any others stir anything… maybe

it was never the music intending to bring anything beyond rhythms and sounds… maybe

all the feelings come from nowhere, but even chances go around when the lyrics start… though

all you want is for those feelings to end… forgiven or not