Solo

by Kwame Alexander

Eight years ago, he was arrested for reckless endangerment of his child, and he hasn’t released an album since. Most recently he’s managed three DUIs, and a drug overdose that almost sent him to a rock-star reunion with Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse.

My family stands for too much and not enough. Too much celebrity not enough dignity. Too much excess not enough kindness. Too much Yes. Not enough No to drugs to crude behavior to breaking the law to rock & roll. Too much. Not enough.

Cool, now show us what you got written so far, kid. Well, right now, it’s mainly an, uh, idea. You got nothing? I got nothing.

Rock and Roll, Blade, my father whispers hugging me with breath that smells like the devil’s mouthwash.

Tourists leave green in his black trumpet case, while he melts the blues, bending the notes like a storytelling machine, and wailing like the music’s gonna save him, and us too if we’re lucky.

Me and love have not gotten along too well; happiness is a foreign country, and my passport has expired. This is why you’ve

They say we’re made of stardust; that would mean we’re made of eternal light.

We are the sum of moving parts and adjustable hearts.

Let’s respect that, he says, almost as if he’s reminding himself.

Her embrace is wrapped in wild orange with a strength that defies her tiny stature.