They could know him, would he but Listen

I don't know why I can't stop thinking about him. It's been over four years since I've talked to him, two years since I last saw his thin, angled face; and yet it has been only five minutes since I've remembered him, whispering his name to cold ivory piano keys as if they knew who I was talking about.1

But I think they do know. They know this boy, though they've never met him; they know the muse, dark and silent, who hung above my shoulders for five long years, pushing me only as hard as I was willing to push myself. They know well the figure who haunted my daydreams, inspiring me to spend hours on a creaky little bench learning to listen, learning to play. Learning to love him, little by little, as I strove for him. Yes, they know him well; my love, my precious hated one.2

He was so cruel to me, my beloved hater, my first love. It was only his ridicule that pushed me at first--or maybe I was just too willing to please him that dark winter's night, sitting on the floor with a stupid little keyboard, trying to play a stupid little melody. His unblinking gaze, always so focused and intense and cutting right through me, moved from the piano to my eager eyes, his usual gentle frown in place.3

"It doesn't sound anything like it at all," he'd said, in that voice he would use when talking to his step-mother and to me. 4

Failure struck me in the face, but in the presence of my hater I seemed to brush the comment off, smiling and playing something else.5

"I'll have to work on it then. I'll listen to the song again later, when I can listen to it loud. How about this?"6

It's a Sailor Moon song, the theme of the Circus-epoch villains. I'd been working on it for a month; listening to the MIDI and figuring out the arrangement note-for-note, leaving out the complicated harmonies and chord patterns that were too advanced for my young hands. I was proud of my achievement. I loved the quirky melody.7

My loved hater, my first love, told me it was hollow. "There's something missing; I don't know what, but I don't like it."8

I was younger than him by one year; but that singular year seemed like such a vast amount of time and space to me that it may as well have been ten years. He was so much wiser, so much more knowledgeable. He introduced me to so many new things that would form the basis of my life to come; he played the violin so beautifully. If he told me my piano playing was wrong and hollow, then certainly I was no good at the piano at all. If he told me my writing style was childish and unenlightened, then surely I had no talent at all.9

My dearest friend, my dearest antagonist, changed my life that fateful night. I stopped playing; I looked at him in a way I'd never looked at him before ... he smiled at me like he would smile at an eel caught in the fisherman's hook and kissed me, told me he hated brown eyes. That was his game, that was the way he played it; and there was never a more willing victim than me.10

His words gave me an obsession. I poured over the piano day after day, beating the stupid little Sailor Moon song into submission; reworking it, adding to it, practicing it so much that my parents threatened to ground me from the piano, unless I started playing another song--but even long after it hit perfection, it wasn't enough. I gathered new materials, scoured for new songs. I learned as many of them I could, but no matter how long I worked on playing songs by ear I couldn't be satisfied. I wouldn't. There had to be something else out there, something that would be worthy of my first hater, my first crush.11

Perhaps to cover up my inadequisies as an unskilled music-reader, I found my way into composition. Creating my own music meant that he couldn't compare it to any original work; he wouldn't have any preconcieved notions of a piece before I began it--it meant that maybe, in the eyes of he who was my obsession, I would be considered talented. A worthy adversary, worth his time and effort.12

Before I could begin the journey which would eventually lead to my future, we got into a fight. How far would I allow him to go when I knew that falsity was his namesake and I was just a playing piece on his game board?13

He was a horrid boy, my hater, with a disposition so foul that fear was a normality in his presence. He was just so strong, you see, and had an aura that made one feel weak, like a Princess locked in a tower. He would take my arms and fold them straight-jacket like over my chest, holding me to him like a child clutched a stuffed bear-except that his muscular arms and lean chest reminded me that he was no child. There was nothing for me to do, I felt, because I was so young and I so desperately wanted to love him, in my innocent 16-year-old way. 14

With his pawn taken by the Queen, my insecurities, there was nothing left to do for him but scowl and push me aside, never to bother with me again. It didn't matter that he saw me everyday; it didn't matter that our families were close; it didn't matter that, in a K-12 school of only 500, avoiding each other was an impossibility. The fact was that, with two full years of high school left, he never talked to me again.15

But not once did I ever stop thinking about him. I loved him, and even though it's been so long since that time, I love him even now. I started composing; just stupid little songs at first. I was pathetic and empty; nearly always in a dark room, nothing but the light of the Yamaha piano screen lighting my fingers' way as they ghosted over the keys, talking aloud to him as if he had come back to me, my first hater, my only love--like he was listening to me like he used to listen to me.16

"This is what I've been working on lately, see? The melody sounds good now but I need to find a good left hand to match. Oh, but this isn't nearly as good as this piece; take a listen!"17

As I became more skilled I became more serious and started aiming for full-fledged originality--pieces over two minutes, harmonized appropriately, and drawn to sensible closes. The first work of this kind, which I eventually named "My Farewell," came to me through tears shed in a shady room, myself lost in thoughts about my beloved hater.18

Memories of his soulless bowing of "Ashoken Farewell" streamed through my head as I composed for him, bringing my original melody and my best memories of him together into one musical paragraph.19

It was my farewell to him, knowing that he would graduate a day later and walk out of my life forever, knowing that he has never thought about me since that time, and knowing I will never forget him even as decades pass by. It was my resignation to my fate; fate as gifted composer but lackluster recluse, unable to form any lasting relationships.20

He who created me first destroyed me; but like a blind artist, never saw the end result of his craftsmanship. Whenever I sit down at the piano, his shadow is always sitting next to me, and the music I play all belongs to him. Though he will never hear any of it, or never know how I feel, I belong to him: mind, body and soul. And that is why I will never, could never, forget about him.21

I only dream about a day when he will stumble upon this, read this with aging oak eyes, and remember me. I dream of the day he will hear my music, see my name in the credits, and REMEMBER ME.22

Jason, I would have you know I still and forever love you. I don't blame you for your anger and hatred, for your sordid past or shambled future. You are my precious hater, my muse, my only beloved you.23