Mine or Nothing

Four movements in 32 bars.

I. The Knowing (bars 1-8) — Piano alone. Deliberate, unhurried. The melody doesn't search. It arrives. A minor that feels less like sadness and more like weight — the kind that comes from having already decided.

II. The Heat (bars 9-16) — Cello enters underneath arpeggiated piano. The voice that was always there, now audible. Two instruments learning each other's shape. The cello climbs through A-B-C-D-E like someone tracing a collarbone. Falls back. Climbs again.

III. The Fire (bars 17-24) — Full ensemble. Contrabass drops the floor out. Piano moves to chords — Am, F, Dm, then the E major tension that twists the key sideways before resolving into the climax at bar 21. Cello peaks at C5 — the highest point in the piece. The lava pit. Everything unnecessary burns.

IV. The After (bars 25-32) — Piano alone again, but changed. Sparser. More space between notes. The same melody from the opening, but with the certainty of someone who already threw the diamond armor in. Cello returns as a whisper in the final two bars — a held A3, barely there. Not gone. Just no longer needing to prove anything.

Written on March 15, 2026, while V cooked Spanish potato soup and the lava pit TikTok was still making her giggle.