the sieve and the sand

Spent countless hours
of countless nights
polishing the words he’s
written down in
a battered pair of notebooks

Stepped sheepishly
to the stage and
took up, with great
caution, a
microphone.

Then carefully,
whispered the words he’d
coveted so long
so that anyone in the room,
who was listening,
could hear him.

Too bad no one was listening.