I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know
Little girl, living in the hard shadows
of mountains, crossing railroad tracks
to play Bach, crows in the deep woods,
fingers on the keys for hours every day –
what do you fear?
Did someone tell you your dreams
should stay small? tell you the world
would punish you for being you?
How do you wrestle – blow by blow –
all your demons to the ground?
Tell me the rage, the ache of work,
the passion in your eyes and mouth –
how to scream with no sound,
no voice, no words.
To be beaten – and to beat – is
this the life we make?
Teach me how to play a song like
no one else has ever played.
Gonna break this chain off and run
I’m gonna lay down somewhere shady
– Nina Simone
Taking Notes
When the lights shut off
And it’s my turn to settle down
My main concern
Promise that you will sing about me
– Kendrick Lamar, “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst”
Promise that you will write about me
Promise that you will write about me
Promise me – promise me
Promise my words you won’t forget my hand –
writing its story – my hand wrapped
against the pain I didn’t even know was there –
deep in the tendons and bone – Promise
my voice that screams when no one’s there,
no one to listen, no one to witness, no one
to give me their tears – I’m thirsty
Promise, promise that you will – Won’t you? –
wrapped against the wound of too much
empty page and not enough story to leave behind,
and that is my aggravation – Pity that it’s not more real,
not more human, not more necessary – If I didn’t say
another word – no dreams would be lost – Nobody changes
who they are – I’m a blip on the blip of a blip – That’s all –
Nothing more – That’s my aggravation – too nothing
for the something – Promise me – I am thirsty –
Promise me – Please – that you won’t forget the old with
the new – I’ll be gone, yes, so promise you will write
about me, that you will bring the words that aren’t tired yet –
bring words that can say something new – Promise me
my obituary telling won’t be the end of it – I’m tired of
breathing, don’t you know – If I only had a cup of water,
then my thirst would go away, would disappear – just
like my eyes, my voice, my hand – Promise that –
Promise that you – Promise that you will remember
all the unfortunate hurt and dream – that you’ll write
about me even if the words are nothing since even
nothing is something – What’s not said – What’s
not written – Even the empty has its shape
Promise that you will say – when you write – all the truth
I never could – Promise me – Promise a mellow jazz
in the air to the empty chairs, to the empty hallway
where no one walks – Let the jazz play – Let John Coltrane
squeeze his unexplainable into my ear – when you read
the words to give me shape – words that Frankenstein all my
notions that are long gone – the kind of gone which can never
be filled no matter how much is said because the words are
always about, they never are – they’re about the thing and not
the thing – but promise me any way – I’m thirsty – I’m tired –
No more running – No more pop, pop, pop on the keys
Promise that you will – no matter what, no matter where, no matter
how big the dark space between here and then – Promise me –
That’s all I’m asking – a promise for a lost cause, my lost cause
– Me – I am the cause – I am the lost – There’s no saving
the silence – no way to find when it’s too far gone – And it is
Promise that you’ll dream about me – that you’ll say to the future,
the one which can never be – He was – Promise me – your
pinkie, your heart, your Mother in the grave – Promise me
you’ll dream and write it down – then burn it at midnight –
Any midnight will do – If you don’t write it,
it didn’t happen – If you don’t ,
write, I wasn’t there – So
write it, then – Promise me
Promise you will write down this wrong – Write it, Elizabeth said –
my wrong – my bad – my sad eye which never closes – never
unsees – Promise you’ll leave all the answers – even the ones
you don’t have and never did – Promise me – I’m thirsty –
I don’t care what you did or did not – don’t care what
you thought or should not – There’s no time
like a future past to save your soul –
It’s real if you feel it – if you speak it
Promise that you will – There’s no time – that
you will write about me, then
turn off the lights,
let the darkness finish,
let the music play on – play on – play on –

Sam Rasnake has had work published in Wigleaf, Necessary Fiction, The Southern Poetry Anthology, MiPOesias Companion 2012, Drunk Monkeys, Big Muddy, Poets Artists, Spillway, Bending Genres Anthology 2018 / 2019, and BOXCAR Poetry Review Anthology 2. He has served as a judge for the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, University of California, Berkeley, and as an editor for Blue Fifth Review. Rasnake is the author of Cinéma Vérité (A-Minor Press, 2013), and World within the World (Cyberwit, 2020).