Music tended to flow through him like blood through others.  His heart didn’t beat, it simply kept time.  He would swear, never outloud, never to others, that it changed to match his mood, his song.  The two were often interchangable.  He would lock himself away when the bad outweighed the good, pouring the words he couldn’t put together to speak onto paper.  It was never meant for his voice, ever.  He would gift his words, wrapped in notes and sealed with a melody, to others.  Yearning and heartbreak, need, elation, love, all meant for someone else to express in ways he never could.  His fingers were his mouth, flying across paper, trying to spill his secrets, his confessions.  Hours he would play, trying to find the perfect phrase, his fingers bloody from the bite of his guitar strings, but he didn’t feel it, he never realized it until it was over and the song was there.

He covered himself in art, a visual representation of his music, inked into his skin, soaked into his body.  He never felt the pain of it, it was as if the pictures, letters, were inside him and the needle just revealed it all for the world to see.  People asked about the tattoos, but he never explained.  Those who needed to know what they stood for never had to be told.  Words were never his forte, he wouldn’t have been able to explain if he tried.  Instead he stood silent, letting his skin show the world what he couldn’t tell it.