Tristan Robert Lange

Why?

As I sit here by myself this morning, alone in a darkened, pre-sun-lit room,

I think to myself of that time all those years ago, twenty-nine years to be

exact, when I came to you so excitedly with a new song I had recorded.

Honestly, looking back on it, I am sure that I would cringe at it if I were

listening to that song this very minute, I am sure it wasn’t all that very

good, and I am sure you may have felt some disappointment in that

song’s lack of quality. Still, there I was sharing what I was so very

excited for you, my music teacher from my primary school

years. I was a high schooler at the time, in a rock gig,

and I came back to visit you because you had

inspired me in the arts, in music—your

Michael Kamen dreams—and, truly,

you had inspired me in singing,

complimenting my Vienna

Boys Choir, boy alto voice.

But there I stood that day,

sharing with you the music

I had so passionately made,

hoping you’d there see value—

not so much in the song itself,

but in me, your former student.

Instead, you stood there blankly

and you told me, with a straight face,

that you missed my pre-pubescent, high

voice. Then, after saying that, you just walked

away. After decades of self-doubt, self-hatred,

and being too afraid to put myself out there in any

real, artistic way—after a lifetime of tears and pain—

not even really consciously thinking of that day and

time, nor even attributing any of the pain I had felt

to you, I must now sit and wonder (not in anger or

disdain, but in the truest curiosity) why would you

ever show such cold indifference to a teenager?

Yes, to you—my teacher—I would simply ask why?