A playlist for Paul Knox
This playlist is made up of songs I thought Paul would like—or ones I wish I’d played for him. I put it together about a year ago, a year after he passed away.
I’m still figuring out what it means to live with his absence and what it meant to have been his friend. These songs, in this order, have carried me through moments of missing him and missing the version of myself I was when we first met.
When someone’s gone, everything that still carries their presence feels sharper, more meaningful. That’s what this playlist is for me: a way to hold on and a way to remember and maybe even a way to surrender.
A House Divided by Michael Ondaatje
A House Divided
This midnight breathing
heaves with no sensible rhythm,
is fashioned by no metronome.
Your body, eager
for the extra yard of bed,
reconnoitres and outflanks;
I bend in peculiar angles.
This nightly battle is fought with subtleties:
you get pregnant, I’m sure,
just for extra ground
– immune from kicks now.
Inside you now’s another,
thrashing like a fish,
swinging, fighting
for its inch already.
Author: Michael Ondaatje
