The summer he lost his mind
he was two fingers into
a glass of Cherry Coke
and Lou Reed was threatening
to take a walk
on the wild side.

We don’t know if he actually
took this to heart,
but the evidence he left
was a book earmarked to
page 160 of
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
and a scratched out photo
of a women
in a dress
on a dock
in Hermosa Beach.

My cell was vibrating
and it lifted itself
off the table and onto the floor.
The ID read Unknown
but I felt it
like a wave over my toes-
I could feel a chill
and could even smell
the sea.

When I arrived it was his
blood-stained shirt
that resembled Rothko’s No. 14
clinging onto the
gray skin canvas of a man
who wished to wake
as someone else.

I thought of all the things
I could tell him.
I started thinking
that maybe he would look
ugly as a dead person
or that
the longer you live
the longer your biography.
But I couldn’t tell him
any of that.

The summer he lost his mind
I went looking for it.
A black and white speckled
notebook was found in
the glovebox of his car.
It read that he was
hitting too many birds with
his front bumper.
But I know what he was truly saying.

He had no control
over his life anymore,
and, having to scrape
the death out of the grill,
it would only be
mere minutes
before his time would come.

11/06/2015

Posted on 11/06/2015
Copyright © 2024 Jared Orlando