~
The boys of summer.

Johnny once sat under the bleachers, the scar on his tongue, a reminder of the time he bit it after falling from a treehouse. A sack full of yesterday's news in a red wagon, the first and last clues.

Eugene ... the other kid who dropped out of sight on Sunday morning, now the evening edition; now a black spot on the sun.

Why the two-year gap?

Departures and landfalls. But no explanations.

Mom and Dad never comfortable peering into the camera lens. Big brother breathing out vapors until something sparks and all
the old questions came back.

A detective's paradox. No bone. No fragment. No evidence. In his home garage hangs a poster of Eugene to remind him every day.

-- for Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin
~

I don't want to be seen,
yet I wish for someone
to finally really see me.

I don't want to be heard,
yet I wish for someone
to finally listen to me.

I don't want to feel,
yet I wish for someone
or something
to finally make me feel.

I don't want to exist,
yet I wish for someone
or something
to finally make me want to.

Maybe I have to be that someone.
Or something.

let me pause
these daydreams,
and wake up to a reality
where it was never as it seems,
and you were never there to begin

It's taking everything I’ve ever had,
not to crawl into the crevice between your arm and hip.
I want seep inside of you
and live with you,
like the parasite I am.

I’ve bribed to God to make you love me,
And bargained away my future sins.

I want to forget the golden retriever
You took on walks longer than our love-making,
And the way your body writhed beneath my touch
Like a body bracing for a car-crash,
And how with every kiss
I could feel your rigor mortis set in.

I want to read you poems about Kurt Cobain,
While we do ******* at midnight in Golden Gate Park.
And watch you have a visceral reaction
To the memories
Of the times you tasted someone else’s skin.

Instead I’ll
dye my hair black,
Cancel all my credit cards,
And run away to Chicago
to Cheapen myself
and reek of Popov
In a dive bar next to the railroad,
That no one’s heard of
so you can tell strangers
in the subway
and at the New Year’s party,
(at which you’ll meet  your wife)
how much I’ve always meant to you
and how
You will always wonder what happened to me
(Even though
 you won't.)

One day everything was fine,
The next you were gone.

You didn't come anymore,
You didn't talk anymore,
You didn't even text back anymore.

****, you were gone in a blink of an eye.
No warning,
No signs,
No nothing.
You just disappeared.

I guess one could say it was gradual,
But when something happens,
Does it really feel like that?

I don't know what to do anymore.
We're all left hanging on a thin rope
Waiting for your next move,
A sign,
Something to lead us all out of this misery you've brought us into.

The worst part
Is that it happened before,
Then why, oh why did we fail to see it again?

For all we know we could have stopped it,
but here we are back to base one.
Staring at your helpless battle,
Staring at it behind a glass door,
That is locking us out,
preventing us from helping you fight that battle.