Michael

Michael. 

Michael with the deep blue eyes

And the screenplay between his hands,

Michael who dreams of oceans

And sea monsters,

Who doesn’t have 

Monsters under his bed,

But in his head.

Michael who charms a room,

And smirks too long

With his every witty remark,

Michael who is quiet and reticent

But pauses the whole saloon

When he speaks or sings in the dark. 

Michael, who makes elaborate cards,

But never shows his hand.

Michael, who raises money

For charity 

But can’t take his medication

Or save himself.

Michael, Michael, Michael

Everyone’s favorite person,

Except well- Michael’s.

Michael, the weirdo

Who makes maps

And weird tunes 

To tune the whole world out,

Michael, that lush,

Whose eyes are red and blotchy,

When no is looking.

Michael, who alternates eternally

Between tiny violins

And feeling “a great deal of nothing.”

Yup, that same Michael

Who you’ve heard on the streets

Playing second fiddle

To ghosts of his ghosts

And many girlfriends past. 

Michael, who had a whole anthology,

But could not come up

With the right two words 

To say to me.

Michael, who thinks

His whole ego will be decimated

If he has to be sober,

And come up with an apology.

*

I loved Michael

In a tragic way,

The way a woman 

Always loves a man

So absent for what she

Is so ardently present for.

And the way only a despechado 

Man like Michael,

Can love back retrospectively. 

I still think of Michael,

And I lie about it.

All. the. time.

Sometimes when I’m standing,

Before a horizon or set foot in a new sea,

I wonder what seas he’s seen since me,

Wonder if he ever even noticed 

The oceans I saw in his eyes,

And wonder if it was ever even true

He saw the same four

And blues in mine.