Before the note, my throat tightens like it’s been asked a question it already knows the “safer” answer to.
My mind does a little dance — just chill, you aren’t Aretha — as if humor could pass for wisdom, as if restraint were the same as humility.
I know this choreography by heart. The step back before the sound leans forward. How to disappear half a breath early.
But when I stop listening — when I give the note it’s due something ancient wakes up.
My hands start keeping time. A beat forms where doubt used to live. I sing without an instrument and my body remembers it was one.
There is a place I go when I stop watching myself sing.
A stage. Empty. Warm. I’m dressed like the night expects something formal, champagne light against my skin, no audience to negotiate with.
Nothing matters there except me and the music finding each other again.
The voices that once told me don’t, can’t, pointless fall quiet — not because they were defeated, but because they were never invited.
This isn’t about hitting the note. It’s about arriving.
I will never reach what I don’t send myself toward. So maybe this time I don’t pull back.
This time I let the sound finish its sentence.
From now on I sing like my bones are listening and trust that they know exactly where to go.
