This place I go
when I'm feeling brave
with it's many clicks and hums
re-exposes
old wounds
I'd been content to bandage.

I could be absent from here
for months, for years
composed in my truancy
smiling in the face of my own cowardice.

But when that wind on some strange whim
sneaks through blinds,
catches hold of unsuspecting hands,
lifts trembling fingers on a surge of air,
and touches them, emboldened, to these keys,
I know I have no choice but to concede.

And as the ache starts
coursing through me
fresh as the day I left it,
I watch my wounds
take form
in black and white.