Mister Four Five / (La Règle Du Jeu)

i met this kid when i was 15 but i wish, with much of my teenage self, that i had met him when i was 25...26 maybe...27...yeah, 27 was a goodie...maybe he knows this maybe he doesn't, maybe that thought is 'nowhere with nowhere,' as my step father used to say...and i know most things are out of sight out of mind and that includes me and that is fine, that's the way most people operate...i just mean to say, here, having lived far apart from loved ones all my life, thoughts transcend the hypothetical and have had to take on an air of the real...less wishy washy than concrete...less flattery than sincerity...to think of anyone daily, as i do everyone in my life, is not obsessive or possessive or whimsical or hopeful...that is unless believing in the open ended and believing that life is long and sometimes takes after novels....is hopeful...but for the most part, i know, borjita, lo que pasó SIMPLY pasó...and one should never write past midnight, if one is easily moved by the planets, or a black sunday sky.

...and then there is this photo...this photo was sent to me from overseas and it is precious because i know and do not know this kid. i feel and do not feel this kid. i am all parts divided on this kid. i remember and i try to forget this kid. i recall and i repel this kid.

i take back and regift that which was received skeptically /
such high walls and so they were scaled /
too easy but who was fighting?

bah...i have no control over my memories and yet, as a point of reference, he has a stake in some of the more profound scenes that remain latent within me. and i know this kid has a gaze just as piercing today; it would imply knowledge of self, no? or is that a shield? ...the stillness and the pride twice as strong now, maybe...and i wonder who broke his heart or what he wanted to be then or who took the photo and if he's bald or fat or lame or brilliant and shiny and charming and brave and happy or just playing happy...if he builds things or fixes things or breaks things or cares for things and who he loves or if he does...and i guess...well, that is it - i wonder...this afterthought is still too much of me, or too much from me - either way, it's an afterthought in passing dressed as a birthday wish...these are the circumstances and the rules of 'tit for tat...'

i saw the kid's most beautiful face once, because no one else was watching, and right then and there - he turned himself into memory...

happy birthday, flaco - get yours.