I play the tom *WIP

Playing the drum allows me to appreciate what I have in the moment.

My mom bought my sister---who's seventeen---a tom as a present. It was dusting on a shelf for years, so I brought it over for my younger siblings to play. The youngest brother and I rose our arms and feet to the music.

I'll let party goers, the neighborhood kids, and friends make their beats on the tom. They lay their hands flat and angular, smacking the instrument as would palms against a dinner table. The tom's chamber reflects with sound waves and fills throughout its vibrations, trruuhhn. The tiger's heart roars, growling in the tom as the onlookers nod to its beat. Their conversations, nonetheless, continue.

Its heart raises and falls with thunderbolts, squeezes with veins ripping out, and stretches to the limits of its fibrils, not to be compared to cardiovascular disease, because the tom manipulates sound the way Aristotle contemplates metaphysics.

Though, I can't always sense the highest pitches or tap to my internal metronome. Often, my hands with stiffen to the rapid motions and refuse to rest. The fears surrounding typhoons disappear once they are seasonal, and the beat disappears to a sea of noise.

Ripper Chassis used to be a band/artist collective, so I had to learn an instrument. Do, re, me, fa, sol, le. The minor black keys danced with the major white keys. Equally sharing the space collapsed the dance floor. 

July 10th, 2026