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.
Nice poem!
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