sheila's_piano raze i only played it once. i don't know what word was gouged into its forehead. i know it was an upright. i want to say it was white. i'll call it what i think it was, knowing there's a good chance i'm wrong. i played pieces of songs i knew and a few that were on their way to being mine. she sat on her couch and slipped into the skin of someone who was pleased. i'm still not sure if her smile was real or just a studied lie. most of what i know about her came to me secondhand. she was a doctor. she hated her patients. she would bring piles of files home with her when she spent the weekend with him and then pretend they weren't there. she was on call twenty-four hours a day. sometimes she would forget to eat. she kept clementines in her purse in case she started feeling faint. a woman collapsed when they were at the mall once. she rolled her eyes. she didn't want to go through the motions of being the thing a piece of paper hanging on her office wall told the world she was supposed to be. she didn't have a problem spending money on frivolous things. but she was tight as a fart when it mattered most. she loved smooth jazz and sweet white wine that burned the back of her throat. she had a wall knocked down to give her more space. she wept when she saw the carnage she'd signed off on. i hate it i hate it i hate it, she said. her parents stood there and stared at her like she was someone else's daughter. she wouldn't play for him. but he heard her one night when he came to pick her up. he stood outside her apartment door and listened to what slipped through the cracks. the music wasn't anything he'd heard before. it was beautiful. when she was finished, he knocked so she'd know he was there. she was horrified. he tried to tell her she was an artist. she wouldn't listen. she made sure no one ever heard her play again. 220826 what's it to you? who go blather from