SIX SECRETS

for Justin Chin

You looked so much bigger on stage.

Oh, Justin.

I’m the only person crying in The Big Short.

I left work early,

couldn’t concentrate

and picked this movie.

I’m getting all the texts about you.

Beth texted that you were taken off the ventilator

and I just lost it.

Someone here thinks I am this moved

by the work of Ryan Gosling.

Now that you’re gone,

I can share some secrets with you.

Secret 1.

My memory corrupts from reality

into a Roger Rabbit theme.

Past a certain number of years,

I remember everyone

as cute animals,

anthropomorphic cars,

or Simpsons characters.

Secret 2.

We were in a heated competition since we met, Justin.

You weren’t aware of it,

but I thought of it often,

the way San Francisco competes with LA

and LA doesn’t know.

Your books sold better,

we both went to SF State but the faculty liked you,

and you got better write-ups in the local weeklies.

Even now: while you were dying,

I contracted an unspecified iridocyclitis.

My iris is inflamed, and you are dead.

No one gives a fuck about my eye, Justin,

because you fucking died,

you one-upping son of a bitch.

Secret 3.

I have to tell you about Bob White.

I have to explain why

I can’t show videos of you from my reading series.

I should tell everyone under forty

that no one carried video cameras around back then.

No one except for Bob White.

Bob showed up week after week,

hundreds of times,

letting the camera roll

while you and I and all our friends

read poetry and heckled each other.

I figured Bob will be the one person to document this.

And one day, Bob was gone.

No one knew why he left.

No one knew where he was.

And, as I asked around,

no one really knew him,

no one had a phone number

or knew where he lived.

So years later,

Stolmar and I are drinking in the Uptown

as we were wont to do.

We’re talking about poetry readings a little too loud,

and this guy comes up to us and says,

Hey are you guys poets?

We get ready to fight and he says.

Maybe you knew my dad: Bob White.

Holy shit, I said, I haven’t seen him in years.

and his kid said,

Dad killed himself on Christmas a long time ago.

We swapped some awkward stories

and drank the ill reputed well bourbon.

And then I said,

hey, you don’t happen to have a bunch of videotapes lying around, do you?

stacks of drunks in a bar yelling at each other?

They may look dumb to you, but they would mean a lot to me.

Bob’s kid looked at me befuddledly.

You don’t know, do you? he said.

No. I said. I have no idea.

His kid laughed.

There was no tape in that camera, he said. Ever.

My dad carried a video camera around

and pretended to film things

so people wouldn’t talk to him.

It’s the perfect metaphor

for that precious time of our lives:

a video camera with no tape.

All the backflips, the nudity, and the heckling are gone.

The chaos of nerds

swelling with pride, poetry, and amphetamines are gone.

The bucket we dumped the unfinished beers into

and sold back to yuppies we didn’t like is gone;

that’s what we called the house beer.

I guess that’s secret number 4.

And all the wine in all the bottles

were really from one of two boxes

that we had to refill before the start of each shift.

Secret 5.

All that world is gone,

and the only things left are

lingering memories and stories,

like farts in an empty elevator of life.

Oh, Justin. I miss you.

The way you read

from that very first time I saw you on stage at Slim’s,

you read your Chinese Restaurant poem,

and I derisively said

to the lovely Karmann Ghia

I was dating at the time,

this guy just won.

The way you giggled

with your hand over your mouth while looking away.

The catty whispering sneer

talking about authors and books you didn’t like.

The way you hugged me goodbye,

the last time I saw you,

I don’t remember where it was,

but it was the first time I noticed how small you were.

Fuck you, poetry slams,

for making poetry a thing

that is won or lost.

Fuck you drugs and alcohol,

for blurring and warping my memories.

Fuck time and fuck money,

I’ve never had both of you simultaneously.

Fuck death, fuck disease,

and fuck Brad Pitt

who is more self-righteous

than a White Jesus painting.

Secret 6.

The last one.

This is the first poem

I’ve completed in four years

since my friend Alex’s heart blew out.

Thanks for giving this back to me

like some kind of morbid gift bag.

You lawn sprinkler of sass.

You Giger-covered mantis.

I promise to always remember you

the size of Voltron.