But I Don't Want to Be With You

Band members trickled onto the makeshift stage, instruments littered on the floor like confetti. Somebody's birthday party--I didn't know her, but I knew I had to be there. This is our first gig, bear with us, she giggled into the microphone, as countless phones lit up in wait. A beat, a riff, a song took shape, nervous glances under straight black bangs, but there was no other way to go but onward.

I left the party drunk; I hadn't realized. The borrowed bike made curlicues in the pavement, the uphill battle an impossible foe. My head swam with images of the night, of a melody that refused to leave my eardrums. A text message came from across the land: tags of a concert much larger, much grander, of backstage passes and summer in its prime. But this small stage, this trepid stake, how much more important it seemed. The beginning of something new, the advent of great things to come. I will say I knew them when, was the joke, but it was said in all earnest.

The little things will move you, when they are given with heart. The melody continues; my pride knows no limits. Live your passions, the rest will work itself out.