His playing was fragile-tainted with guilt and heartache. I couldn't listen anymore. I didn't want to. But as his fingers licked the keys, I wondered: Why? Why does it have to be like this?

This piece of passion and retrospect was twisted with hate, all feelings of guilt replaced by the slipping blame that ran in his heart, taking over his mind. Hatred for him. For what he did to his own son. I didn't understand. I couldn't. But I knew why... why his playing sounded bitter sweet till the very last chord that he played.

The unstoppable need to play. That if he didn't he would suffocate-that if he couldn't release the overwhelming passion inside him that he would burst... and lose his entire existence. Of what he was to be called.

All of a sudden I knew. I had discovered fresh feelings, feelings that weren't new but buried deep inside me waiting to be defined with a word.

Warm.

--A piece I wrote for Venus Capriccio.