A song, for when we are apart

Strings that tie us together,
tense, pulled taut,
they draw long and lonely
journeying notes
to the rumble
of the city
of the commute
of the brewing storm,
to the soft sighs
in our chests, from underwater,
grains of sand pulling away,
away from the shore.

The verses we sing,
few and far in between,
flat and muffled
by the blaring chorus
of phone alarms
of slamming doors,
of throbbing headaches,
heavy, unresolved
distance--
and dissonance--
but we strum with our strings,
we keep trying and tuning,
little intervals, then chords
that pull us back together.