Sing

We were poor, so poor, and no easy pablum or empty philosophy of “we were rich in music” would change it. We did play guitar, we played guitar more often than ever we did before and then we played songs that we’d heard, that we’d written, that we’d wish people would pay for but didn’t. We played everywhere. And as the hunger crept at our knotted fingers we cramped and played louder until only the vibrations of our strings kept the sallow pit of our stomachs from dropping out of our bodies.

We were so, so poor. The worst of all was that we weren’t even richer for the music. We’d written so many things, of so many broken hearts, of so many stories of love and life. But faced with the inevitable rumbling of our stomachs, they seemed sallow and empty: as significant as a steady bead of rainwater running across a drumskin. We were so, so hungry.

You wished, you so desperately wished that you could ignore yourself. You stared blankly at drugs, alcohol, sex and lies only to look away and remember all who fell before you. It wasn’t the way, but neither was this. We were drawn, almost inexplicably to the music. Or rather, I was. Joseph left. David went back to college. We were our band.

This in turn leaves only me, but. The mind moves.


I know some things: I know that this is all I own: my clothes, my guitar, a few sets of rusted-out fiddle strings, and a well-worn guitar case whose only familiarity is with coins and the faces of Washington and sometimes Lincoln. I should be gone, so long gone away from here. No broken family to head home to, no drugs to run away from. But…

Maybe just another song.