Paradoxical Noise Or "I'm In Love With You And Your Ridiculous Violin But I Just Don't Know It Yet And Neither Do You, You Insufferable Man" Poem by Paulina LozadaCortez

Prompt:
"The second Afghan war brought honours and premonition to many,
But, for me, it meant nothing but misfortune and disaster" - John Watson, The Abominable Bride (Sherlock Special, BBC)



I lurch upright in bed,
Ears ringing.
The sounds of war, I recall
A ghost of an image -
- Men dying.
My men.

Pain.

I grasp my bad shoulder
the bullet wound -
As I have hundreds of times before.
It's but a scar,
A distant memory ...
… of the men I couldn't save.

I'm Home,
I tell myself.
This. Should be. Enough...

Yet sleep evades me.

A soft screeching ensues, filling the silence -

A Violin.

It's you, I realize, strumming away on that silly instrument.
You're more like it than you know, I think in the dark.
With your attractive edges,
And endearing defects -
A sociopath with a heart.

You and that violin are Paradoxes


For over six years, I've woken up nearly the same way:
In this bed, in this room,
At this very time of day,
Thinking of you in the dark.


Then you, the virtuoso, begin to play.


And as the heavenly racket eases my mind
Filling the 4AM silence of morning,
Drawing my head fuzzy and compliant,
I realize,
The war is over...

Except the one waging in my mind
Over you.



We're a paradox, you and I.