The man who can carry the weight of the world, but cannot bear the weight of a jacket.
Who can carry the music of the world in each one of his notations.
The world punishes those who feel the most.
Torn between worlds that are oftentimes placed upon them within the gift that they express to a world that has been given to them to tear them apart.
He learns early
that gravity is selective,
that some burdens announce themselves
with brass and applause,
while others are quiet,
stitched,
resting on the shoulders until breath tightens.
A jacket is small.
That is the cruelty of it.
A simple thing asking for warmth,
asking to be worn,
asking nothing more than presence,
and still it collapses him.
Inside him, symphonies rise
without permission.
Notes arrive heavier than stone,
each one a vessel
for what the world refuses to hear directly.
He writes so others can stand upright.
He bends so others can dance.
Feeling becomes a public utility.
Sensitivity, an unpaid labour.
He translates the ache of strangers
into something almost beautiful,
something they can hum on the way home
without knowing who bled for it.
There is a violence in being gifted.
Not the obvious kind,
but the steady expectation
that the wound should remain open,
that the well should never run dry,
that the hands that offer light
should not tremble.
He is asked to be vast
and is punished for being tender.
Asked to hold worlds together
and shamed when his own seams show.
Because beauty,
once carried,
does not allow itself
to be set down.
