I Remember

Mikey,
I remember you all the time,
At the oddest moments, really.
Like when we were singing along to
Springsteen's "Born in the USA" while
We watched fireworks on the 4^th of July--
YOU taught me to appreciate
the poetry
that is Springsteen….
And I just can't wrap my head around
The fact that you're gone nearly 11 years.
Gone.
Not forgotten, just not right here,
Laughing with me, singing with me,
talking about "deep stuff" with me.
Mulling over poetry and writing with me…
GETTING me.
Quoting goofy movie lines,
belting out SARAH, HEART, Indigo Girls in the car,
driving down the beach at night,
cracking up at you being such a GUY
Drinking thru a straw so daintily—batting your
Incredibly lush lashes, darkly twinkling us
into hysterics as we got high
on chocolate cokes and great conversation.
Good times, no, GREAT times….
Times worth remembering.

Seems like just yesterday,
when I bother to think back,
but so much has changed….
Sometimes I feel so lost,
because I lost such a big part of me in you.
The big brother I never had…YOU….
Marathon phone calls spilling over
sketches, poems, bits of this-and-that,
lucid dreams that we only dare
talk about with each other because
they're just simply too bizarre
to share with anyone else.
Who else could I ever discuss foot fetishes,
Greenwich Village, Marxism,
Politics, Deep Doctrine, Maya Angelou's poetry,
Patriarchial Blessings, road tripping, and
Going to the Temple—all in a single stream-of
Consciousness conversation? Nah….

Belly laughs. Bear hugs.
Harmonizing in church, hanging out,
or in the car.
Break out the guitar and our journals,
Break it all down into the real, the feel,
Singing out, sharing that healing together.
Crying on each others' over-sensitive shoulders.
Keeping each other from tearing ourselves down.
Analyzing "why won't he call me? What's wrong
With me?" and coming to the rescue with
music, movies, chocolate, and understanding
that I'm an artistic, old soul….
You held me up while I cried it all out, felt so
Dirty, unwanted, unworthy.
You knew better.
I never got to thank you….

(If only you could meet and hang out with the
One who claimed my entire heart and healed me
—after all those months of singing me praise
I never felt I deserved—HE came!)

Loneliness touched you, too, and found you
an unlikely songbird to have and to hold—
if only for a moment. So tiny, so fragile. All yours.
Your very own little piece of heaven
after a life of hell. Out of everyone,
you deserved your happily-ever-after.
I wanted to envy you, really, I did. I tried.
but part of me felt protectively your sister,
wondering if her heart was as true to you
As you truly were as YOU.
Not my call, I know.
But I always did wonder….

Part of me just died the day you died.
Our little "band of merry men"
scattered and gone—
that's the only way I can describe it.
If you only knew "you-know-who" held me up
that day at your funeral as I cried over
everything YOU—ironic, yeah, I know.
So numb, so stunned, so swollen with tears
still unshed--that day was such a blur of
struggling to make any sense at all.
sense out of senseless, now that's rich.
So me….I just couldn't
bear to let it be.
Took me so long to go to the cemetery,
seems like it's more real that you're gone.
That can't be right, I still hear you giggling away
in my head, I still talk out loud with you
in the car, I still wonder what you'd think
About this-and-that.

The gang's still here, in a manner of speaking—
some drifted away, others faked out, flaked off,
totally crusted me out.
We've all gotten married, moved on, grown up
in our own ways.
It's just not the same without you—
we talk about you from time to time,
reminisce about the good ol' days,
sing, laugh 'til we cry, and
we still get high on
chocolate cokes and great conversation.
Good times, no, GREAT times….
Times still worth remembering....