I overheard my Mom saying that I was recently taking voice lessons.
It was to someone I couldn't remember, A house guest, maybe?
We were at the backyard.
My toddler body delightedly passing through the clotheslines,
The swaying colored fabrics
sent me kisses from the sun.
It felt nice.
She said she caught me mimicking how the roosters, cats, and television cartoons sounded like,
That's why she thought I had talent.
I only took them two summers; She passed away.
In elementary, I would be asked to sing by my classmates, for a morning school program, and sometimes contests.
I had found myself singing vocal solos, duets, and choirs.
Then, my teenaged voice was lent to classmates learning from a recently borrowed Song Hits, employed for a small gig at a party, accompanied the guitar strings or piano keys of romantic partners I wasn't allowed to have.
in cold showers, washing dishes, doing laundry, road trips...
My falsetto moved and echoed across the empty hall of a big house.
The attempted belts cloistered within the confines of my room.
Lyrics come easy, better when a guitar or piano or a beat was with it.
Then, I became too busy.
Instead, I contented myself to the songs in YouTube, to my Spotify playlist, to the downloaded musical plays, to OSTs and gaming music.
I listened to them,
whenever I had a report to finish,
an exam to create, scores to make grades from, a speech to compose, an essay to correct, a flashback of an argument, a bout of co-workers' comments to reevaluate, instructions from my boss to execute.
Soon, I had to stop listening to get work done.
Months ago, one of my childhood friends chatted me on Facebook. She's a bank teller and asked me what I was doing now. I said I was a language teacher.
"Oh. I thought you would've majored in Music."
An old lady who was once my neighbor commented,
"We missed listening to your songs as you washed dishes and laundry."
The choir friend I've met at a grocery shop,
"It would be nice to have a reunion cantata. What do you think?"
My high school classmate mentioning something to my coworker,
"You were in a band? No wonder you have such an interesting lecture voice."
I smiled but the gears of my mind started moving,
When did I stop?