She sings with a Walkman on, this angel who loves me, saved me from myself, at a time when I was ready to be saved.
     It was 1978, doing weekend time; the last hurrah of misguided adolescence and good supply of illicit drugs. She waited patiently, to see if I’d really change, at a time when there were no Walkmans.
     Now, amid the comforts of inner domestica, baby sleeping in another room, she sings to me an alto hum. What a shame she can’t hear herself above the headphones, and how intently I am listening.
     Yes, I changed, kept on changing, till I changed too much. So did she. We tried to save each other, till in the end, neither of us wanted to be saved, except from each other.
     Now, she sings to me in dreams, the kind we all drift into, looking out past the bars of sentences we’ve imposed on ourselves. The angels are merely what we could or might have been. The rest, ghosts of who and what we really were and are. The entire mess playing noisily from the latest make of headphones.
     The baby still sleeps in another room...visiting, and when he wears his Walkman, he sings to me a nine-year old’s song...of ghostbusting, unaware I am listening, how good he sounds, though I make a point of telling him. And in simpler language, I often tell him how he saves me from myself.
     Sometimes, when we’re walking together outdoors or at the local mall, he catches me smiling at certain passersby. And then comes what I fear the most, those all-important questions, “Do I really want to be saved again? Or do I even need to be?”
     It’s tempting. The world still full of angels, some with smiles, others, frowns. We see a lot of them at the local supermarket, in narrow aisles, between high shelves, that from below and above look like bars.
     In the dairy, one approaches, humming to herself with Walkman on. She stops and smiles, allowing me to pass. In thanks, returning her expression, I continue on my way, while a different kind of angel, invisible, continues to watch my every move.


© 1992
Inputted and revised © 2021

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01/19/2021

Posted on 01/19/2021
Copyright © 2024 Chris Sorrenti