For the past five months I've been posting my shit poems. If you haven't read them, and I sure as hell don't blame you if you haven't, they seem to contain everyday observations, but with a punch line. And for the past five months I've been tiptoeing around posting poems that are more serious in nature. What is serious is more the subject and less the creation of them.
A couple people have encouraged me to post some of these pieces not having read them: "Be brave!" they'll say, or, "Why the hell not!" as if to pour a feeling of apathy over me. This encouragement makes me less inclined to publish these works, "What do they know? They haven't even read them," I think. However, anyone who's opinion is worth a damn, if given the chance to read them, would probably be more reluctant towards encouraging me to post them, which their discouragement would probably only work in the opposite of its intended effect. Why discourage me? Because those closest to me have a problem of being able to clearly see what is true and what is false in almost anything I write. For them, what is true is too revealing, and what is fictional is simply unnecessary. Trying to explain that it is all technically considered fictitious has become a futile effort. Fiction is not too revealing of fact because none of it is fact, but instead fiction, and telling the story is necessary for the writer or it wouldn't have been created.
The piece you're about to read has gone through a lot of transformations. I have written it, and deleted it, and written it again a dozen times, even the title has changed drastically from its original form. I feel as though every time I read it, I add or take away another word. It is essentially prose written in poetic form. It is to be read as a work of fiction. Yes, there are certain undeniable facts in the piece: McCall's murder, and that my friend Kate and I got really drunk together one night. But the night with Kate was a fun one that we all got to laugh and reminisce about later and in this instance is only used as a conduit to tell a story.
If this piece is really trying to say anything it's that two and a half years after Ryan's murder I still think about it every day.
You kept me
about the time they were
A couple people have encouraged me to post some of these pieces not having read them: "Be brave!" they'll say, or, "Why the hell not!" as if to pour a feeling of apathy over me. This encouragement makes me less inclined to publish these works, "What do they know? They haven't even read them," I think. However, anyone who's opinion is worth a damn, if given the chance to read them, would probably be more reluctant towards encouraging me to post them, which their discouragement would probably only work in the opposite of its intended effect. Why discourage me? Because those closest to me have a problem of being able to clearly see what is true and what is false in almost anything I write. For them, what is true is too revealing, and what is fictional is simply unnecessary. Trying to explain that it is all technically considered fictitious has become a futile effort. Fiction is not too revealing of fact because none of it is fact, but instead fiction, and telling the story is necessary for the writer or it wouldn't have been created.
The piece you're about to read has gone through a lot of transformations. I have written it, and deleted it, and written it again a dozen times, even the title has changed drastically from its original form. I feel as though every time I read it, I add or take away another word. It is essentially prose written in poetic form. It is to be read as a work of fiction. Yes, there are certain undeniable facts in the piece: McCall's murder, and that my friend Kate and I got really drunk together one night. But the night with Kate was a fun one that we all got to laugh and reminisce about later and in this instance is only used as a conduit to tell a story.
If this piece is really trying to say anything it's that two and a half years after Ryan's murder I still think about it every day.
A Night with Kate
You kept me
company while my girlfriend
visited her mother in Philly.
We got drunk together in bars
while waiting for the train
to take us to a quieter place with cheaper beer.
My place.
Hammered, you asked me
to tell you a sad story.
I filled the train car with
boisterous drunken laughter,
and said that I had plenty,
that I had been to more funerals
than you had members of family.
“I don’t wanna here about
your fucking dead grandmother, Jon.
Give me something I can really get a good
cry in about,” you said.
“Well my grandparents are dead, and
my grandmother did shoot herself in the
mouth with a shotgun, if that counts,” I said.
“Really? Wow, my friend in high school did
the same thing, but he was 17,” you said.
“Jesus,” I said.
“So, what do you got for me? I really wanna
hear some sad shit. Make me cry,” you said.
By this time we had made it
on and off the train,
transported to another bar.
Loud, and dark, and drunk, and hungry,
waiting for quesadillas, I told you a story
about my friend Ryan and brother Michael,
about the time they were
robbed at gun point.
I gave you a wonderful back-story of how
Ryan lived with my family
four months out of the year after
his family moved to Tampa,
and how Ryan and my brother were the
best of friends.
I told you how
Tampa only suffers from
about 30 or so
murders a year.
Ain’t bad when you’re used to
living in the shadows of
New York and Philadelphia.
I explained how Ryan and Michael
were leaving me a voice mail,
full or booze and cheer,
until a man in the background
told them
repeatedly
to
“get the fuck over here.”
“You can hear my brother
being pistol-whipped
on the voice mail,” I told you.
And it’s true, you can. His grunt
is let out like a tremor.
I explain how they
ran.
I explain how my brother
heard the shot, how he thought
it was pointed up
and not
out.
And when he got home, around
the block, Ryan wasn’t
right behind.
“Fuck,” he must have thought.
I explained the 9-1-1 phone call
And the dash back to the scene,
and seeing Ryan’s body.
I didn’t tell you about
a news cast I once saw
after the earthquake
in Port-Au-Prince,
about the hunger and looting,
and how I watched on TV a
man shoot , dying, shaking,
the scared shitless look on
his face knowing he was
suddenly close to death,
or how the news man, and
cameraman didn’t do a single
thing for him except allow him
to live forever, printed
on my brain.
I didn’t tell you how
I thought that my
friend Ryan probably had the
exact same look on his face
as his heart failed and he bled
out.
I didn’t tell you how the bullet
hit his shoulder and ricocheted
into his heart.
What are the odds?
Instead I ordered another
round as we choked
down quesadillas.
You didn’t want your beer, so
I drank for two.
You felt satisfied after my
story and I found myself stumbling
into a black hole.
As we finally made it
comfortably back to
my apartment and partook in
yet another drink I couldn’t
understand how my story didn’t
make you cry. I wanted you to,
needed you to,
cry.
I hoped to god that you would,
just so that I would
have the excuse
to cry, too.
You then told me
about your friend who
shot himself in the mouth
with a gun.
You went into great
detail and back-story,
too.
When you were done, I felt
satisfied. You looked like
you were in your own black hole.
You couldn’t understand how
your story didn’t
make me cry. You wanted me to,
needed me to,
cry.
You hoped to god that I would,
just so that you would
have the excuse
to cry, too.
We were two kids,
stumbling drunk,
allowing each other the
chance to remember that
not everything is alright,
and that it didn’t need
to be.
***
Slàinte
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