Wake Me Up Poem by Suzanne Hayasaki

Build me a melody
On the backbone of a baseline.
Give me a rhythm
To remind me how to rhyme.

Make me ache.
Make me itch.
Make me bleed.
Make me rip.

Reopen the wounds
From which my poetry flows.
Reopen my mind
To the desire to fly.

Too long have I sat listless,
Sparkless in the darkness.
Passively absorbing impressions
Instead of forming my own.

But in this rhythm is a rawness.
In this music is a madness.
In this collaboration is a wisdom
That abandons the burden of words.

Tear me out of my times.
Rend me from my designs.
Leave me blasted and scattered
Like a celestial death storm.

There, in the eye of my own supernova,
I will find substance,
Unformed, unfiltered,
Malleable, fluid and beautiful.

So let the world spew news.
Let events rush past.
Let history march forward
In its relentless lines of life and death.

I will let this melody help me to remember
The humanity that holds the world together.