Blisters

The prompt:
Describe a memory that you can recall when you reached a personal victory by yourself and felt a sense of peaceful contentment from it or an inspiration to do something else.

It could be a musical goal, a personal life change, or well anything really.

In the tiniest, simplest part of her

all that existed was this.

This wish that she could be understood

this wish that she could be heard.

She asked for something she always wanted

there were few things she could have.

But this was the thing that she could own

the voice she never had.

One day it came in a box wrapped tightly

 in duct tape, fragile, it said.

It was far more fragile than anything

that anyone had ever known.

She unwrapped that box with hesitation

with a fear of what it could bring.

This was the way the dream would come true

she was going to have to sing.

For days and days and hours on end

she sat in that room alone.

While blisters formed on her fingers

while she bled to make a sound.

She doesn’t like to learn this way

remedial at best.

Strum this chord, make this sound

repeat, and start again.

So she learned a song that she knew she could sing

the words already in her heart.

She sang them with a tentative voice

as she learned to accompany them.

Her fingers ached until she could not touch

another steely string.

So she held them in ice until they were numb

and went back to work again.

In that summer’s run, that span of time

she made a dream come true.

She came out singing with a voice that told

the story of dreams loud and clear.

Though her fingers were cracked and blistered

they made sounds that she could feel.

She emerged from that room

3 months later, “Blowing In The Wind”.

She sang every word while she strummed every chord

she would never have to be silent again.