She sat by the window of her tiny apartment, staring at the world that bustling outside. She had come to the city with hopes and dreams, like many had done before her. And like the many before her she had her dreams shattered by the cruel city.
A songwriter was what she wanted to be, and writing songs for the biggest names was her dreams. She always felt that music and lyrics went hand-in-hand. If the music was rhythm, then lyrics was the heart. Like all the songs she heard a daddy played, since she was a little lass, she wanted to write songs that told a story. Lyrics that spoke to the listener, a meaningful song, rather than a meaningless thumping beat that played on loop. She found ways to talk to the worlds in the words she wrote.
Family and friends said she had big town dreams that a small town like theirs couldn’t fulfil. So she packed her bags and grabbed her guitar and kissed her mumma and daddy goodbye. She headed to the big city with head full of dreams, a heart filled with hope, a bilked filled with lyrics, and pocket full of cash, which she had saved while working at the local diner. She wanted to make it big on her own merit.
But a big city can be cruel to a small town girls with hopes and dreams, especially one who suffered from stage fright. She could write the lyrics to a song but she could never sing it. Not that she had a bad voice, she just couldn’t sing in front of a crowd. And who ever she approached, with her book full of songs wanted to hear her sing, and some wanted to take advantage of her, as she was young and pretty.
Everyone wanted to her to be this way and that, but she couldn’t be this way and that, she was not comfortable with it. And so she lost loads of opportunities cause she’s refused to compromise about who she was, her parents taught to be better than.
And as she should stood there thinking, it came to time to do her first gig, walking the neighbourhood dogs. She had to do something. Her finances were running thin, and she couldn’t live off the words of her songs, they didn’t seemed to get her anywhere. So she took up odd jobs to help make ends meet.
So quickly put in her coat and headed on the street to collect the little furry friends she had to walk. Sh loved walking them cause she felt their love for her was genuine and there was no motives behind them. She couldn’t say about the people that came in her life. The ones who came with a purpose, befriended her, got what they wanted from her and went their own way. And she like a believed in the goodness that she saw, almost blinded by it, ending up being deceived.
They say when you are sad or feeling low, you need to go to your happy place. These are the times when the memories you treasure become the light that gets you through. But lately that too didn’t help her.
After strolling through the park, she sat on her usual bench where she usually sat to give her four legged friends a break. It was also her vantage point from where she could view the people playing in the gazebo, admiring them. How she wished she could have the courage like them to stand in public and sing like them, never wondering, or being afraid, if someone out there was judging them.
She remembered a music producer who she had recently met. She showed him the body of work, the lyrics that she had wrote. She even tried playing it for him, the best she could. He told her point blank, unlike other who came before him, that she had talent, but it seemed wasted on things that were sickly sweet and gooey. This wasn’t the kind of music he wanted to make. For him life wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows, or garden of roses, cause there’s always going to be rain sometimes, and the roses would come with their thorns. Once she was able to tap into that raw emotion that’s when she would be able to do her talent justice.
She sat there , closing her eyes tightly shut. She let his words echo in her head. When she opened her eyes she knew what she had to do.
That day after she she had dropped off all the dogs off, she headed back quickly to apartment she called home. She wrote down the lyrics, tapping in to the raw feeling she had felt. She tried to put together the musical arrangements for the same till it was time for her next job, a waitress at a local diner.
Once she was done with her shift, she quickly changed, collected her guitar, and headed to nearby coffee house that had an open mic.
She sat patiently in the crowd watching one by one people perform to varying degrees of success. By the time it was her turn to go on, the crowd had become restless. Her heart seemed to beating loudly against her chest. She went into a complete flight or fight mode, leaning more towards the later. But she felt as if her feet were frozen and refused to budge from the spot. So she had no other option but finish what she had come hear to do. She prayed, like she had never done before that her stage fright wouldn’t hinder her.
As she introduced herself, trying hard to be funny, she saw face that weren’t paying attention to her, who busy chatting, enjoying her orders. Her heart sank, but she was determined to finish what she has come here to do.
She closed her eyes and began strumming, trying to drown out the fears in her head and the voice outside. She started to sing the lyrics that she wrote.
It's everything I am and what I'm not
And all I'm trying to be
This is the part where I spit it all out
And you decide what you think of me
I'm not trying to be complicated
I'm never waiting to get the last laugh
But I've been handing out benefits of the doubt
I'd like a little bit back
It's just a little voice
And if you're listening
Sometimes a little voice
Can say the biggest things
It's just my little voice that I've been missing
Looking over the precious moments
It hurts don't it
They can cut both ways
No amount of remembering the better things
Will make the bad ones go away
But I've been broken and the one to blame
So my savior of self defense taught me to
Sing what I can't say
It's just a little voice
And if you're listening
Sometimes a little voice
Can…
When she finished, she felt a weight lifted that was weighing down her heart. For a brief moment there was pin-drop silence. What followed was applause that her lyrics, her words, her song rightly deserved.
He stood up and smiled at her. He finally found the talent he was looking. He smiled and left the room.
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