My Forsaken Sapphic Heart

Every day I see you, every moment spent,

Every time we laugh, every time we hold hands,

Every time you say you love me, and I say I love you,

My heart flutters like a butterfly, and yearns for you,

Yet I cannot tell you that I like you in such a way,

For you don't love like I do, our hearts aren't the same,

And that makes it clench like nothing I've ever known,

Yet I must persist for you're the best thing in my life,

A bundle of hope, a sparkler of happiness, a ray of 'shine,

You've loved me like no one else has ever done before,

And it makes me feel so lovely and oh so very gay,

So I wish not to tell you ever about my true feelings,

And I pray these thoughts die every single day,

For I do not wish to ever lose you, oh my best friend,

So should my feelings ever meet the shine of your eyes,

Should my heart ever see the light of the day,

I plead that you forgive my forsaken sapphic heart,

My precious little bug, why must things be this way?

I'm kind of, no, I'm very annoyed and very upset.

See, I [19 tF from India] produce hip hop beats, I've been producing since I was 16, and I've been listening to hip hop ever since I was a teenager, I know quite a bit about it, I'm passionate about it, and I respect it.

So anyways, I go to an engineering college, and we have an elective, "ability enhancement" course (which has multiple options like music, dance etc.) that we can choose from and I went with music since I'm an amateur piano player and producer.

So, our music class is handled by a maths faculty, who is a carnatic singer and plays the violin, and he's well respected, even by the music club. One day, he told us that if we knew about something musical very well, we could take a session about it in class, and we'd just need to approach him.

I texted him two weeks later, and he told me to approach him in his cabin with a piece of mine. I sampled a Pixies song and made a beat, and he said he was looking for more MIDI work, and I thought "okay fine, I'll give him some MIDI work" and I threw in some chords, and made a LoFi beat that I really grew to love (though I think it could use more work).

So I approached him today, asking for his feedback. Initially, he was very curious, he saw the individual patterns in Fruity Loops, asked me about how I came up with it, and he appreciated it, said it was very good, and then I brought up the session I wanted to take tomorrow and so he asked me how I was going to take the session, and I said I'd touch up on the history first.

....but he objected, saying anyone could look it up on Google, and he was more curious in me teaching the technicalities, the music making process behind it, and he kind of wanted me to "show him" how I'd teach the class. I was very nervous since I hadn't prepared, but anyways, I first started talking about the samples I had used in the beat, and very briefly touched on how sampling made its way to hip hop very early on, and then he went "I don't want to know the history, talk to me about the instrumental".

So I started talking about the beat's structure itself, how the kick drums, the hi hats, and the snares give the song rhythm, and yeah, I was nervous, I was doing it a bit poorly, I was unprepared, but I was still trying and then he said "oh my god you talk too much" and... that broke me. It made me want to die. I don't even talk to people much to begin with and when he said this?? It was so uncalled for. You WANTED me to explain it to you, and you just shut me out. It made me so upset but I didn't voice it.

....and then he told me it would be a good idea to make a beat IN CLASS. LIKE, I CAN'T JUST COOK UP A BEAT IN CLASS?? It took me nearly a day to make that. Okay, yeah, he said I could recreate the same beat, but I can't RECREATE the eureka moments, the joy I got when I figured something out, it would feel fake. What's worse is, my fawn response was always active when this was happening, so I didn't really object or anything, I just... kind of complied. I don't know why.

But now I've come to realise that:

He didn't have the right to say that to me. It was so uncalled for, and it really upset me. Okay, yeah, when I entered the cabin, he seemed tired, his eyes were kind of red, but he could have absolutely told me to come another time than entertain me.
There is no way I can explain hip hop without talking about its complex history. I mean I knew this I just didn't know why I couldn't tell him that then. It goes deeper than turn-tables and CD scratching, it didn't just appear out of nowhere. It goes so deep, from the transatlantic slave trade and the slave songs to Martin Luther, Maya Angelou and X. It's so diverse, there are so many styles, and it's and subgenres and it's evolved so much since it's conception that I literally, can't explain it all through one LoFi beat I made.
There is no recipe for rap beat production, there is no formula, everyone has a different style and I can't force them to learn hip hop production if they're not even interested in it. Some people start with the bass or drums or even vocals, I start with the chords, and making a beat, requires lots and lots of listening, everyone starts different. I can't expect half the class to come up with chords immediately, since most of them are carnatic and hindustani musicians, but I could show them sampling but he doesn't like that and seems ignorant, even though it's how hip hop started.

So yeah, tomorrow's my music class, I don't know if I'm going to take a session or not, and frankly I'm so done. I don't really care what happens either. I really looked up to him but this just made me feel really awful. I don't care if other people like him that much. This was so mean.

Edit - in case y'all want to listen to the beat though, here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12iRrvuTfoD9XFDq3OD5obQFhf-lgW0nj/view?usp=sharing

u/Burnt_Out_Lassie

Writing something everyday!

I'm in love with my bestie who's demi-ace and straight so I wrote this poem

My Forsaken Sapphic Heart