I USED TO PLAY THE SAXOPHONE by Peter Brindley

Peter Brindley

Peter Brindley is a poet based in Atlanta. He writes about the body, the family, and addiction — the search for meaning in a world that makes that difficult. His work doesn't resolve neatly. His poetry has appeared in Trashlight Press, The Marbled Sigh, and Empyrean

Literary Magazine.

I USED TO PLAY THE SAXOPHONE

I hold my knees to my chest,

hoping pressure will still my racing heart,

slow the blood,

turn hyperventilating

back into breath.

I bury my face,

flush, sticky, wet,

against the concrete wall

that has come to know me—

hoping my neighbors won’t hear me whimper.

These sliding doors have become my home.

Respite from the room I can’t bear to rest in,

a bed that doesn’t understand what it’s borne,

pillows that still hold her shape.

Windowless.

Mirrorless.

I don’t see myself here.

No one else can see me either.

I stay in my preferred cell.

My saxophone lingers on the top shelf.

I feel it watching me,

wondering why I can’t play it anymore—

its phallic neck

bent toward a mouth

afraid to open.

It sits beside the safe,

hiding crumpled dollar bills,

a bong I haven’t seen since college,

a birth certificate that doesn’t belong to me anymore.

It peers over jackets that don’t fit.

Fast food and sedation

are good company

that won’t cure me.

It whispers to the longboard,

its bearings rusted shut.

Neither remembers

why I stopped moving.

It takes pity on my shoes,

unpolished and scuffed,

forgotten in the same corner as me.

The hangers are empty.

She said something once

about how I dressed.

I donated the evidence.

Some nights when I cannot shake its gaze,

I take the saxophone down from its perch.

In the dark,

my fingers find familiar purchase

on mother-of-pearl buttons,

worn smooth in places

only my hands ever touched.

My hands remember what they knew

before they knew fear.

I put my mouth to the neck

and breathe

without making a sound.