What Music Means To Me

By: Clara Pressey

Nothing can make me feel quite so effectively as music—

Lifting me up and carrying me across waves of inspiration,

Throwing me into a pit of pain

To reside in it with others.

Because that’s what music does.

Nothing can convey such purpose,

such meaning, such emotion

as music.

Condensing skies of emotion into a song and

Creating rainbows of meaning

Out of a prism

Because that’s what music does.

If you were to compile a list—

a compilation of beautiful things, proof that joy exists—

you’d be remiss to not include music.

If you were to compile a list—

a compilation of things that prove love exists—

you’d be remiss to not include music.

If you were to compile a list—

a list of things that prove that change can happen

in every crevice and corner of this thing called life—

you’d be remiss to not include music.

And it’s always there.

Not only in each song played

Or each stanza sung,

but in every breath taken.

In every love loved.

In every word spoken or written, every comma upon a page.

In every cry of sorrow, every cry of joy.

In loneliness

and fear

and triumph.

In heartbreak, and elation.

It’s always there.