in the absence of a soundtrack

in the absence of a soundtrack to life,
we walk silently,
yelling, screaming, spitting, fighting & dragging each other
through this “nasty, brutish & short”
existence,
without the all-encompassing symphonies of dramatic films,
the eerie minimalistic piano & acute
industrial beats of horror flicks,
our relationships churn whitewater rock-filled rivers,
chaotic & self-destructive,
with no death metal or hardcore to
accompany---
our depressing, slobber-ridden sob-stories,
lay face-down-drunk at the bar carrying no minor chords or
cigarette-laden blues to support us,
and if we are lucky enough,
ever since our hormones began to run rampant,
we dance a spontaneous idiosyncratic jazz but
neither bird or coltrane are able to come with us in our melancholy---
instead, we take each punch wielded,
upside the face
quietly, holding not the gritty reality of our entropy found in the frank poetic rhyme of
rap,
no,
it does not form a backdrop of strength behind us when a climatic moment hits,
when we could all really use it.

in the absence of a soundtrack,
our own actions, be them compassionate or
murderous,
they pound us back into the granules of stardust just as quickly as we came---
the words that come as supplementary
do not weave an actual melody,
one which we all might try & hum together---
our individual lives are silent movies
shelved & hardly watched by anyone but the characters found within---
alone, irrelevant & disappearing rapidly as the credits start to climb,
we fade out as curbed mimes
persistently trying to make rhythms with the tapping of our
tormented
fingers.