Dominic Black's "Why?" is addressed to someone who has been badly hurt, and the speaker is trying to reach them with kindness. The speaker looks past what other people say and sees a "kind, broken heart" and a faint shadow of who this person used to be. Even the stories the speaker has heard only confirm that something inside has been damaged.
The middle of the poem is its sharpest idea: people call this person loud, but the speaker suspects the noise is a shield. If the volume drops, the sadness and loneliness might finally have a voice. The person also feels they are failing and obsessing over details, yet the speaker reads this as exhaustion from pain, not weakness or lack of talent.
The mood is tender, protective and hopeful. The speaker never lectures, only offers reassurance, and the closing lines turn the person's perfectionism around by calling them perfection itself. The poem ends as a gentle act of support.