I sing songs under my breath but
When I don’t part my lips
They escape my lungs
As hums, and I forget other people
Can hear them.
I think the skull is a secret
Instrument, turning a never ending
Repetition of imagined
Words into a melody
As they echo off bone walls.
I don’t just hum because I can’t sing,
I hide the songs behind closed lips
Because the language
Weaved in the music speaks
The things my mind chatter is trying
To say to me.
To day dreaming-ly hum is perhaps
My brain’s break
From my own thoughts,
Because it feels like somebody else
Is thinking them.
I have nothing to think except thoughts,
And a song …
Fills a never quiet
With musings that are at least not loud,
And inks a never blank page
With cursive instead of a scribble.
“What are you humming?” they’ll ask,
But I’ll always answer “just a song”
Because to reveal my hummed hymn is
Like turning my skull inside out and
Wringing loose the contents, and
It’s contained there for a reason,
Because those thoughts are mine.
Lauren Kathleen 