Third Thursday in the Same Seat (Fan Love)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
Every third Thursday
I take the same seat
second row left
beside the column
that blocks the drummer
but gives me
an uninterrupted line
to the trumpet

I arrive at 20:45
fifteen minutes before the set
because the sound check
is a private language
between the musicians
that the audience is not meant to hear
and I am the audience
who comes early
to hear what I am not meant to

He warms up with a phrase
from Chet Baker
that he plays
the way some people
stretch before running
not performing
just waking the instrument
and I have memorized
this phrase
the way you memorize
a stranger's commute
which is a thing
I should not admit
in a song

[Verse 2]
My brain files him
under people I know
The same social cognition network
that tracks my colleagues
my sister
my patients
has built a file for a man
who has never heard my name
spoken aloud

The file is extensive
It contains his set list
his tendency to close
with the same ballad
the way he tilts the trumpet
seven degrees left
on the high notes
the Thursday he played
with a cold
and the tone
was rougher
and I preferred it
and I will never tell him

I know this is parasocial
I have read the literature
I know the medial prefrontal
does not distinguish
between a friend
and a performer
who plays every third Thursday
at a club that holds forty people
and my brain
has forty-person intimacy
with a man
who has arena distance
from me

[Pre-Chorus]
The contract is the ticket
Twelve euros
He plays
I listen
Nobody owes anyone
anything beyond the price
and yet

[Chorus]
Third Thursday in the same seat
and he looked toward my section once
in November
and my reward circuitry
completed a sentence
he never started
The look was probably
for the bartender
The dopamine
did not care
who it was for

I am a fan
which is a person
who has agreed
to love in one direction
and to find the direction
sufficient
and to return
every third Thursday
to the same seat
beside the same column
and to feel
the same impossible thing
and to call it
a good evening

[Bridge]
There is an honesty to this
that my real relationships lack
I expect nothing
He delivers everything
The trumpet does not cancel
The trumpet does not
need space
The trumpet does not
wonder where this is going
The trumpet goes
where the set list says
and the set list
is the most reliable promise
anyone has made me
in two years

I dress for these Thursdays
Not for him
For the version of myself
that sits in the second row
and feels something large
and takes it home
and puts it
on the shelf
beside the books
I have underlined
in three colors
and the cup of coffee
that knows my weight
and all the other loves
that live in objects
and never disappoint

[Final Chorus]
Third Thursday in the same seat
and the set ends
and I walk home
along the Seine
with the last phrase
still in my body
not in my ears
but somewhere
behind my ribs
where the sound
has decided to live
without paying rent

I do not know his name
He does not know mine
The trumpet knows
something about both of us
that neither of us
has said
and the knowing
lives in the twelve euros
and the second row
and the column
that blocks the drummer
but gives me
a clear line
to the only love
that has never
once
been late