Forgotten Lyrics

Writer's cramp daily entry - didn't.

Prompt ▶︎

Please write a story or poem that has the title:

"Forgotten Lyrics"

Please select "Music"
as one of your genres!

Word count: 544

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It didn’t hum a lullaby, wasn’t a song like it used to be. It didn’t carve a woolen yellow, wasn’t a colour like I used to see.

I didn’t know when did it start, nor will it end, how long it’s been?

I couldn’t choke, couldn’t writhe - how long it didn’t taste.

…

The sound. It didn’t flow just in golden magnesium. Those woven strands of silky threads that I couldn’t touch. Couldn’t fathom. It didn’t paint my cradle whole, didn’t colour my world stoked. It couldn’t bear what’s left of her, and what’s remained of me. Had it never arrived at my bedsheet, wouldn’t I forget the chorus of late afternoon?

It wasn’t a moon-rise night, nor a sun-kissed day. Still, she couldn’t stop returning and raising her heart. Her voice didn’t soothe into the air, through the rays peeking through curtains. But it didn’t stop, and I didn’t want it to.

I didn’t remember the song she’d loved. I wasn’t sure when that changed. I didn’t write, didn’t think I needed to. Now I didn’t know how it tasted.

I didn’t want to let it go.

Why couldn’t I remember the taste? It wasn’t just lemongrass, sweet and sour at the back of my throat, dancing buzzes tingling my mouth, no, it wasn’t just lemongrass. It wasn’t just burnt potato, when the song hadn’t ended, starchy bitterness waxing my griefs, a fiery love that hadn’t died that day. No, it wasn’t… it wasn’t.

Why couldn’t I remember the sight? Stranded needles didn’t knit a net, hollowed strings didn’t thread a noun, no, it never knotted the ballad she’s sung. It didn’t glimmer like sparks, it didn’t stark like trims, no, it never shone the melody she’s hummed. It wasn’t… It wasn’t…

It didn’t feel like anything.

I didn’t have the words, now, I didn’t have the song. One day, it wasn’t there when I reached it. I couldn't tell how many days had passed. I tried not forgetting it - humming it, again and again. The sound of it in my own throat wouldn’t leave it all to die. But the taste didn’t rise from its sunken submerge. I couldn’t think.

The shape - the way it didn’t leave the crescendo, the pause that had never stopped feeling like a colour of held breath. I haven't lost the shape. But a shape without color couldn't mean anything but an outline. A cradle that didn’t have anything inside. It didn't tell what had lived there.

I didn’t stop trying. I didn’t stop singing. But I didn’t feel it itching at the back of my throat anymore, even when I didn’t look at it directly. Memories didn’t resurface. It didn’t invoke anything in me.

Because I didn’t stay.

I didn't know a song could be a place. I didn't know you could lose a place that never had an address. I didn’t know you could forget muscle memory. I didn't know that forgetting lyrics wasn't about the words at all. I didn’t know it was all about the taste of them, the color, the specific interior world that didn’t make it ordinary.

Her lemongrass hair, torn knitted hats, it didn’t feel like that anymore.

I should have written it down when I could still hear it.

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My thoughts on the story ▶︎

welcome! as always, kindest greetings to those who stopped by my work!

today's prompt was nothing too unusual, should i say so myself. soooooo, you know me, i like to tackle writing in every imaginable spectrum. because of that, im more than pleased to announce today's sponsor - I don't have herpes  , by Jeremy. go read it if you havent got the chance. anyway anyway, i got the idea of writing a full piece just using negative statements (except for the one at the end) from here, i thought it'd be a really challenging way to address grief through denials? somewhere along that line!

again, not easy, but writing shouldn't be easy. i had to break the motto of no edit and no revision because a positive statement slipped out like several times when i read back, the writing's flow is strong. the end work was something i could probably say that im happy given that im experiencing more ways to put words on paper.

did it come out beautifully? maybe.. i think i did a better job on this one, surely?

anyhow, thanks for stopping by again! and well, i do have a fair amount of words i want to get off my chest, but if you dont understand, dont worry!

To you, thank you for being the first ever person to recognize the creativity in my work. Originally, I didn't want to do today's prompt, perhaps never again. I was fairly discouraged to see myself lacking behind others. A contest shouldn't be about winning, but not knowing why you lose just stung. Like a pang in my heart. Like a thorn in my chest. Breathing became a chore I forced myself upon. I thought I wasn't as witty as I portrayed myself to be, but you had proved me wrong. Your words pulled me back when I began sinking to the depths of a limbo - a maze of confuddled thoughts spiraling together in the abysmal reign. It felt like I was going deaf.

But you believed, and perhaps saw the potential in my work, even though it wasn't grounded in anything concrete, an... abstract I have yet to work on, as it turns out a conclusion is yet to be made. You believed, and perhaps knew the lenghts I had gone, even though I never once spoken in anything expressive. That was enough motivation to keep me going. You have made me realize what is it... to write. To write, for my own muse, not for the crowd. Thank you, words from the bottom of my soul, my backbone.

I hope you'll have a great day. I really do wish that today's work, inspired by that brief sensation of deafness I felt, could make for a great musing.