Unfinished Symphony by Olivia Salter | Poetry

 

Unfinished Symphony

By Olivia Salter 

In a dim, drab office,
under buzzing fluorescent lights,
a young lady—ebony skin, yet striking—
sits, grinding away day after day.

The gray, cracked walls
and the bland hum of the ticking clock
beat out a lifeless rhythm,
filling the silence with steady taps.

Her tired brown eyes wander
across endless columns of numbers,
lines and curves of 2's and 3's,
her pen scratching the page,
disrupting the stillness.

Autumn sun slips weakly
through the grimy glass,
streaking across her ledger.
Then—what was that?

A soft, familiar tune, distant yet clear,
breaks through the walls around her mind.
Louder, closer it comes.
The pen falls from her grip, forgotten.

Tears glisten in her eyes,
her lips tremble into a faint, wistful smile.
She stands there, captured in a silent dance,
one hand resting on her heart,
the other raised, as if to catch the music.

The clock’s ticking fades,
and she loses herself,
draws in the music like breath,
her face bright with visions,
her soul alive with poetry.

The words pour out, unbidden,
rising from somewhere deep.
She murmurs verses, her lips barely moving,
lost in the moment.

Then, the clock strikes—
a harsh reminder, a sudden jolt.
The music ends, the words vanish.
She blinks, the vision fades,
and a look of pain clouds her face.

"Tick, tock," the clock chants,
“Work, work,” it insists.
Dreams don’t pay rent,
don’t buy food for her children,
don’t bring security.

The dream is pulled back, forced down.
But oh, if she had the chance,
if the world opened to her voice,
She’d be more than a shadow,
She’d be a name, a legacy.

And you, world, with all your wealth,
couldn’t you make room for such a voice?
Why should brilliance suffocate,
why should a soul burn out,
unseen, uncelebrated?

Trapped in that cramped room,
she feels ideas beating at her mind,
like birds, desperate to fly free—
only to fall silent, caged,
fading back into the dark.