Backwards violin

I could see you becoming cold
only to me,
only to everyone else;
successful.
I am afraid
of your success.
You study notes.
You play them backwards and forwards and
and
and
and
and
I cannot
touch
you
at
this
time.
All you hear sometimes
are backwards violins
and, of course, lines.
Those thin squiggles of sound:
that screen.
Notes make
a thick wall
around your
head
and my voice cannot pass through
your wall of notes.
If a question were less
than “Why is my shirt on fire?”
(which does win attention)
you would not hear it.
If the question was
“Why is your shirt on fire?”
you might go on burning.
I take comfort in that.
Your comfort?
Walls of notes.
Like a safety factory and a wilderness
and a cracked tooth smile all warmed up and glass splintered pavement
and simple rocks,
rocks because they’re simple.
Thank you rocks
for being simple
and saying nothing.
You wall of notes, delivery truck of notes-
wretching underside bunch of vibrations
speeding through your brain like a mission;
running through your face and out;
leaking bent fences;
sounding shrieks for emperor’s ears.
If we had emperors
they would pee
their satin shorts
and send you gold and wives-
-gold-
-wives-
The gold I would eat.
The wives I’d have to kill
with backwards violins.