If I played violin in the desert the notes would still stir me, but there would be no applause, just the echoes across the horizon. Flat.
If I made a glass sculpture in a warehouse and showed it to no one, it would still reflect the light, even if the light was 60 watt.
Unseen drawings done with chalk on the sidewalks of abandoned school yards would fill up no hats and will be washed away by uninterested thunderstorms. But it would leave the colors on my hands, my knees and my eyes.
I don't need anyone to see any of these things; maybe they don't even exist.

But my words don't hide in unread notebooks anymore. And my thoughts no longer fly out car windows like so many straw wrappers. Flying away to parts unknown.

If I were to play my violin in the desert, I believe that a great wind would swell up.
Showers would come on. Birds would scream to the heavens, because “No one to hear," doesn’t equal "No one to hear.”

When I beat my drums alone in my home, an angry storm rises in my breast. My heart pounds along with the bass drum.
Dogs bark. Neighbor’s cats make squalling noises, but do not come close to the house.

The singing is different.


Even when I am totally alone, if the song is naked enough, I feel myself performing.
I feel eyes on me.
I know that you are watching. Even if you aren’t, really, watching.

I don’t have a voice anymore.

It was never really that good, anyway.
But in my heart, and in my room, I still perform.

And in the desert, I play my violin. For you.



~for etouffee and for deep thought, gone but not forgotten.

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