the cracked key

I still have my first keyboard which I got when I was 7 years old. My feet didn’t reach the bottom of the floor when I sat down to play it. My dad brought it home in a big gray box. It sits in my bedroom back Home.

The keys creak these days when you play them, from the years of moving up and down.

The F above middle-C is cracked from the many houses and rooms the keyboard has passed through.

Dusty these days. The new piano has weighted keys and better acoustics.

I learned the notes on this one, though. I banged the keys a few times too many. I pressed random buttons until I figured out what they all did. The different instruments it could mimic. The meaning of a chord.

Sometimes things stay the same but you’re the one that changes. Music will never change.