9/11/2016

Feburary 2015

you were so tough I thought,
I always have this belief about men that they're not as tough as they think they are and I'm always right
I don't know who my friends talk to I think maybe I'm just soft or
and I remember you,
who'd come from poverty
and no father
would smile vaguely when we, all our friends
sat in your house and when we drove in your car with the windows down it was feburary but we didn't mind
you never showed me any feeling we never knew
what was going on with you
you were excited to get your life together and bring honor to your country
the week before you did I saw you and
it was a Sunday we were alone
you gripped the steering wheel we had stopped somewhere because you had to do some business whatever that meant
a man came to the car you called him ******* and he called you chamaquito you went into his apartment and came back two minutes later
the car was silent as we rolled past Westminster and the Seminary
you cut the air
"you know I don't want to go to the marines
I wanted to be a businessman"
I never saw you after that


you went away to Arizona
and I never forgot that
because it was the only part of you
I ever truly knew,
of this vague polarizing figure