I don't like being ridiculed for liking R&B. I want to be praised and goaded to give names, records, mixes. I want to whisper in those dirty ears, "I've been doing this a lot longer than you." I want to elegize the classicism of the music I listen to and denounce the piety of the obscure tripe. I want to chalk an equation, develop a theorem to prove integrity's distance from tunelessness.

So the passion has lit inside myself in a tiny room where I only can give brief insights to the most droll of exchanges. I battle with myself inwardly, wishing the acceptance, but being aware of the solicitation it would mean. I tire of the jump rope conversation, my ignorance of the rhymes they sing, my inability to break into the game.

Relaxing, I see the jazz of the moment. The parts not being played, the determinable words not being said. And how lovely is she. And how awful I feel. The quality of a night a musician alone can recognize, a wunderkind is able to play and virtuoso (in the purest sense of the station) can create. Sometimes it feels as if I am none of these, but merely a critic. A mealy, bookish scavenger feeding on scraps of affection by the things I exalt, their glow giving me an outline.

It is scary to be aware of the goodness a person can possess when embracing them. It is almost as if the world recognizes an effort of good will and the payment is just simple enough to floor you. A flooding glance of sheepish come-hither. Lips pouting and lonely. God as an usher.

Perhaps this is your seat, sir. Perhaps.