BLINK
Solo
Copyright © 2017 by Kwame Alexander
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Epub Edition June 2017 ISBN 9780310761907
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Cover design: Micah Kandros Design
Interior design: Denise Froehlich
Printed in the United States of America
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17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 /LSC/ 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my wife, Stephanie, because you love me — KA
For Garrett and the boys — MRH
Contents
Part One: Hollywood There’s this Dream
Strings
Chapel
Texts from Chapel
Leaving in Ten Minutes
The Show
The After-Party
Hollywood Report
Who Am I?
Are You Sure They Aren’t Coming Home?
Those Eyes Will Be the Death of Me
Two Years Ago
Later, I Bumped into Storm
Trance
Chambers
Relentless
Excuse Me
She Melts Right in Front of Me
Voice Mail
Salutatory
I Wonder if Anyone Has
Close One
Secret
I Can’t Say I Blame Him
Texts to Chapel
Conversation
The Bridge
In my House
While I’m in
Uncle Stevie
For all his Flaws
October 10, 2007
Track 1: Thinking of You
The Song’s a hit! Went for Coffee. Break a Leg, Killer!
Graduation Day
Climbing the Steps to Speak
On the Biggest Stage of my Life
My Father
Texts from Chapel after Graduation
Hollywood Report
Track 2: When the Lights Go Out
Dream Variation: Spin a Song
Hovering
Texts from Chapel
Conversation
Knock, Knock
Conversation
When the Limo Arrives
Phone Conversation
My Favorite Guitarist
Soundboard
Conversation
Texts Conversation
Voice Mail
Texts from Chapel
Deliver Me
My Sister is Beautiful
Phone Conversation
We’re at Rudy’s
When Doves Cry
Finding Robert
We Pay
Hearing Robert
He Finishes his Set
Track 3: Cross Roads Blues
Out of Gas
Crisis at the Pump
Don’t Fret
The Beginning of a Song
I Really Got to Start Locking My Door
After She Finishes
Hope
Today is the Day
Conversation
How to Throw a Sick Party (According to Storm)
After the Dance
Conversation
She Takes
Bliss Interrupted
Party’s Over
A stretch Limo Pulls Up
His Eyes Look Like
After he Finishes Signing Autographs
Erase Me
Family Secret
White Noise
I Get in the Car and Drive
My Phone Lights Up
Text from Chapel
Texts from Storm
Text from Rutherford
Texts from Chapel
Under the Cherry Moon
Text to Chapel
When the Levee Breaks
Conversation
Before
An Earthquake
Aftershock
Taking a Stand
Devastation
Shelter
The City of Palms
On the Taxi Ride Home
Perspective
I’ve Known the Rules
So I Drive
It Feels
Day 1
All the Songs That Make Me Think of You
Day 2
Day 3
Dream Variation: Soul on Fire
Funny
Day 4
Storm Knocks
The Sadness
I Miss You
Day 5
A Manila Envelope
Day 6
I Search
Phone Conversation
Conversation
Track 4: I was Young When I Left Home
Day 7
Texts to Chapel
Conversation
Down the Hall
Track 5: Sunny
It’s Not Enough
Conversation
Hollywood Report
I Pack up What Matters
Conversation
A Bit?
It Feels Permanent
Gone, Like He was Never Really Here
Leaving Chapel
Text Conversation
I Imagine
I See
Van Dewish
Eight Legs and Fangs
Crying
You’re Excused
The Heart
I Decide
Shattered
Storm and I Stare
Leaving LA
Before Takeoff
Track 6: Welcome to the Jungle
Part Two: West Africa Cramped
Regrets
Track 7: Enter Sandman
Dream Variation: The Ledge
Sitting
Conversation?
I Wake Up
The Heat
Outside
On the Way to the village, We Pass
Conversation with Taxi Driver
Texts from Storm
Texts to Storm
Junction
The Morrisons
Two Hours Later
Conversation
Joy Walks
Twenty Minutes Later
No Reception
It is Impolite
Her Village
Track 8: Zombie
Fufu
Conversation
On the Way
Conversation
Home
Conversation
Orphans
Portrait of a Woman
Conversation
I Dig through my Suitcase
Text Conversation with Storm
Zzzzzz
This Morning
Foreign Language
A Village of Faces
There must be a Hundred
Welcome
Stories
I Wish
Texts to Storm
Goodbye
The Little, Winking Girl
Mighty Protector
Stay
Conversation
She Tells Me
Conversation
Conversation
Why I Don’t Play Music Anymore
Confession
What Begins
Purple Rain
Thunderstorm
Cleansed
Rainy Season
I Watch Joy
Wordscram
Texts to Storm
Bedtime
Alarm
Breaking Our Fast
Joy Says
Text to Storm
Holiday
Undeliverable
Conversation
After Watching
The Moment
Stare
Family
What are You Doing, Blade?
Someone I’m Trying to Forget
Conversation
Thought
After Four Days
Conversation
Rock ’n’ Roll, Baby!
We’re the Morrisons
Conversation
Delayed
Texts from Storm
Conversation Continued
Introductions
Rutherford Gives
Twinkle, Twinkle
Luxury
Track 9: It’s Only Love (Live)
Freak Show on Wheels
Sober Coaches
Conversation
Perplexed
Texts to Storm
Delayed
The Next Morning
Unsettling
Captured
Track 10: The Star Spangled Banner (Live)
Music Lessons
Conversation
The Elders
Acting
All Day
By Day’s End
Mirrors
In their Language
Game Night
People are People
I Wake Up
Standing Outside
Happy Birthday
A Gift Returned
Sure, I’ve Missed
Before I Leave
Track 11: With or Without You
Parting
Words
They Return
Withdrawal
Conversation
Detox
Cursed
I Pluck
Diving Back In
A Day Later
Over the Next
On the Fourth Day
The Duo
Texts from Storm
Texts to Storm
Konko
Text from Storm
Conversation
While he Teaches
Sunday Night
Worth the Chance
The Next Morning
9:15 am
Anxiety
11:09 am
Track 12: Right Now
12:31 pm
1:30 pm
1:37 pm
Conversation
1:59 pm
Travis
2:19 pm
2:22 pm
2:43 pm
2:51 pm
3:02 pm
Rutherford’s Moment
Watching Joy
Joy’s Prayer
Revelation
4:09 pm
Turn off the Camera
5:25 pm
The Peak
My Mother
She Runs
Belonging
Fade to Black
Don’t Be Afraid
Conversation
Sweet Bread. Fruit. Hot Tea.
Questions
Dream Variation: Awakening
A New Day
We Walk Outside
Conspiracy
Track 13: Landslide
Lucy Walks us to the Path
Home
Chaos
Diagnosis
The Mosquito
What Matters
Unlikely, but True
Sia is Sitting Up
In a Voice
Tuesday, 2:30 am
Let us Sit, She Says,
Track 14: (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman
Sleepy Serenade
Dear Blade
Conversation
Surprise
Walking Up the Hill
Why?
The Procession
Solo
I Sing
Acknowledgments
Part One:
Hollywood
There’s this dream
I’ve been having
about my mother
that scares
the holy night
out of me,
and each time I wake
from it
I’m afraid to open
my eyes
and face
the world that awaits, the
fractured world
that used to make sense,
but now seems
disjointed—islands of possibility
that float by—like
a thousand puzzle pieces
that just don’t fit
together anymore.
So I think
of Chapel
and grab hold
of the only other thing
that matters.
My guitar.
Strings
Mom used to play
this game
on the tour bus
to help us
go to sleep:
Who’s the best?
We’d go through
every instrument:
piano, drums, horns.
Our favorite was guitar.
My sister, Storm, always said
Eddie Van Halen
was her favorite,
probably ’cause
he once made her
pancakes
at 4 am
in a Marriott kitchen.
Ask Rutherford and
he’d say,
I’m the best in the world,
I’m outta this world.
Electric soul brother interstellar man,
which is ironic
because he was trying
to quote
Lenny Kravitz, who
Mom would say
was in her top three
along with Jimi Hendrix
and me,
just to piss him off.
Chapel
is the great song
in my life.
The sweet arpeggio
in my solo.
Her lines bring
color and verve
to my otherwise
crazy life.
Without her
I’d be a one-man band,
with a played-out sound
and no audience.
The magic
we compose
is endless,
immortal.
We could play
together
for centuries.
If I’m lucky.
And I love
the music
our bodies
make
when we’re dancing.
But there is one thing
about my girlfriend
I don’t understand.
She says
she doesn’t believe
in sex
before marriage,
but she never
wants to get married.
When I ask her, Where is this all going, then?
she likes to
get real close,
eyelash close,
and say things like
Let’s live in the moment, babe
or we don’t need labels,
&n
bsp; and then
she kisses me
like we own the world
and nothing else matters.
It’s funny how
going nowhere
feels like it’s
going someplace
fast.
Texts from Chapel
7:37 pm
On your way stop by
Best Buy pls. Headphones broke.
Red or purple. K?
7:47 pm
They finally left. I
hate hiding. Wish my dad
wasn’t so CRAY. He
7:48 pm
thinks all the things
the tabloids say
about your family
7:48 pm
are true. He doesn’t know
you’re different, Blade.
He says
7:48 pm
you’re going to
drag me into sex
and drugs.
7:49 pm
Hurry up and get here.
They’re at Bible study
’til 10 . . .
Leaving in ten minutes
Sorry. Working on a song.
Beats or Bose?
And tell the Reverend I
only did drugs once.
The Show
My father,
Rutherford Morrison,
can’t stand
to be away
from the stage.
He has always craved
the spotlight,
needs it
like a drug,
posing, posturing, profiling
before millions—
an electric prophet, or so he thinks,
capturing concert worshipers
in the vapors
of his breath,
as if his voice
was preparing them
for rapture.
My sister and I
have always lived
under the stage,
beside it,
behind it.
The After-Party
There was always
another party.
More loud music.
More loud groupies.
Booze
and still more groupies.
I was nine.
He grabbed me
and held
a sizzling cig
in front
of my face.
Only it wasn’t a cig.
He blew smoke
circles around me
and laughed.
My boy.
The band uncles got
in on the joke too,
and I stuck my tongue
in a shot glass
full of whiskey,
soaked it up
like a dirty sponge.
I loved making them laugh.
The whiskey hurt
my throat and
stung my eyes.
But the laughs
were epic.
Before I knew it
I was taking my finger
and dragging it
across powdered
sugar that looked
like ant snow trails
on the table.
Rutherford was too busy
kissing his ego
to notice.
I tasted it once,
twice, and
a few more times,