Happy To Be Ignored

Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.

The tapping of the pencil stopped; you stopped it. Your hand flies across the thin lined paper as the words flow out of you like water
out of a faucet, and the room is so impregnated with silence that I can here the woody skritch-skritch of the pencil on the paper.
Everything about you is focused solely on your lyrics, so much that you seem to have let my presence slip from your furtive mind,
your thoughts too absorbed with the sloppy marks of graphite on processed tree to take in anything more.

They wonder why I even bother coming to visit you on days like these, where all you do is work silently on the passion of your life,
making void all else. So why do I continue, if I know I am only to be ignored? Is it because of my love for your silent, lax presence,
this side of you that I and I alone have ever seen, that pulls me toward you like a bee to a flower? Or is it the want of a
companionable, comforting love, like that of a kitten yearning for a lap to sit on, which makes me need to stay with you? It could be
both of these excuses, or it could be neither, and I don't care. Being here with you is all that matters to me.

Thoughts scatter as you glance over your slender shoulder through a curtain of thick brown bangs and acknowledge me, and my heart
bursts in joy, though I don't show it; it would embarrass you. You torturously turn back around, dropping your pencil in favor of
embracing your guitar, and I listen and watch expectantly.

You thumb a few strings experimentally as you look at your recently written lyrics, making that metallic squeak that you know I love;
whether purposely or subconsciously, however, I can't tell. A melody eventually pulls its way from the random noises, bringing with it
your diseased, melancholy voice. The tune is old, but the words are fresh, and I listen contentedly to your mournful intonation, your
new libretto enticing my thoughts to ponder more on you.

A disgusting electronic buzz pulls me from my joy. I don't even have to look at the annoying beeper bestowed upon my by my sister
to know it's my mother, reminding me to come home, and I once again think myself masochistic to continue bringing it along. I sigh
wanly and rise from your barren mattress, placed conveniently on the honey-colored wood of your loft's floor to further point out your
emo image. I come to stand behind you, hesitant to leave. You continue playing your stringed instrument, the alarm from my
mechanical woe appearing to have not bothered you as it did me, not in the least. I frown inwardly, allowing my hand to grace the
crown of your hazel hair in a feather-light touch before I leave, only to return tomorrow and again be ignored.