valentine

an ode to regina spektor’s early and unreleased work

she sings of the gravediggers planting bones in

the ground

and i sit with my cross stitch pulling threads

through the fabric

her old songs

her young mind

my young mind

a comfort i didn’t know i missed

words that have sat in a song

for twenty years that haven’t changed at all

and yet with each listen i find something new—

the angst of coming of age is something she knew

and wrote it down in notes of a song

and it’s all okay that i’ve got it all wrong

and i don’t know what the future’s gonna hold

hell, tomorrow the world could end and i never grow old

but the beauty of art is that it continues existence

in spite of humanity that hates its resistance

to practicality, to time, to death, to age

oh, i wish her words were ones i could hold in my hand

songs about statues and pavlov

bartenders and water bearers

winter and death sentences

songs as old as i am

and keep growing old with me

i’m coming of age and so is her music

in a time when no one knows what’ll come tomorrow.