Broken Record

You play like a broken record I just can't throw out

What with your intense skips and gaps and repeats in a song I used to love

With your horrid sounds of whirring and scratches that have long since dulled in my ears

I've long forgotten the original sound of this record, but I cannot help but hope that I will hear some of that sweet tune again

Sometimes I hear it, if only briefly, and hope fills me

But it is quickly replaced by a sudden scratch so loud

So loud that I forget the tune I am trying so, so hard to keep close to me in memory of my youth

I find it too painful to listen for it anymore, and I simply let it play, on low, letting the scratches and whites and skips play out

There is one difference, however, between you and a record

You can fix a record. You can mend the scratches on some occasions

But even if you can't, you can throw it out. You can toss it and break it so that you never have to hear it again

Records can be easily replaced, and in no time at all you can be hearing that sweet music that you have been missing so much

You could be fixed too, you know. But it's as if you don't want to

You don't want to fix those scratches. You wear them as if they are armor, not a flaw

And as much as I would like to some days, I cannot throw you out due to this glaring and embarrassing imperfection

I am stuck with you. You are stubbornly glued into the record player and cannot be removed no matter how hard I would like to try

I suppose the only good thing about you

Is that, no matter how many scratches you have or how stuck you are

I can take a sweeter sounding record and effortlessly play it over yours, placing it right on top of you

It may not be a permanent solution; but at least I can ignore that disgusting, sour-sounding, scratch that you've ingrained so deep in yourself.