March 26, 2011. This was the last time that I ever saw Sean in person.
Wish you were here and that things were the same as they were when I met you with no one to blame… with no illness or madness or distance between us… I wish you were here with desire to fill us… I wish you were riding and we were together… I wish we were writing and we were forever… I wish that the others who found you were kinder… My wishes serve as a constant reminder that wishes mean nothing in the face of disaster… I wish I could hear the sound of your laughter… I wish I inspired it… Although it sounds sappy… I wish you the best and hope that you’re happy.
Written by Jason Wright August 26, 2011
For Sean: who inspired much more and deserves so much better.
The moments between us are filled with such stillness…
Cherished, Exchanged, Sharing our stories…
With chapters in common and frank allegories…
He gives it to me and I’m touched without touching…
He whispers to me and I’m flushed without blushing…
He leaves me with passion transcended to form…
The canvas is thunder; his heart is the storm.
The sea of emotion by these colors rendered;
the work of a man who never surrendered,
The man in the painting who’s insides are bruised…
Is haunted by faces that used and abused.
Some of the faces are drugs that he’s taken…
Others are ghosts that still leave him shaken…
Some are illusions, Others invented, Some are the sins that he’s never repented.
Others are faces of boys he’s not dated…
He thought that he had but they really translated into nights meaning nothing except what he’s losing…
For riches imagined and instrument moving…
The face is the horror of waiting untasted…
The face is my mirror…
The face of time wasted.
Written By Jason Wright August 14, 2011
For: Johnny Vaughn, who’s artwork inspired it.
Johnny V passed away a little over 6 years after I wrote this. He was a caring friend when I deeply needed one. He and I had shared history but his adventures had been with people who were only ever on my periphery and I cherished each and every story that he gifted me with. He was also a brilliant painter and gave me the work that inspired this poem, though I also put in as many references to his tales that only he might recognize. I’m gratified that he read this and had such a positive reaction.
From the first moment… I’ve loved who you are when it’s only just us…
Nothing distracting the truth of the two of us.
Just our eyes locked across voids we can’t place…
The hurt and the kindness as it lights up your face…
The pain you keep hidden and the light you can’t see…
I like you best when you are with me.
Written by Jason Wright July 25, 2008
For Preston James Clayton, who inspired it.
May he rest in peace.
Comments from when I initially posted this on Facebook.
—- I met Preston online (where he lied and told me he was older), then ran into him on the streets of Ann Abor, where he was living at the time. On the streets I mean. I was shocked and appalled at his all too common situation; he said he’d been kicked out of his family’s home for being gay. I took him to get dinner because feeding him seemed a priority, which is ironic since I’ve often struggled to feed myself, which in retrospect, might be why he felt like a piece of me despite us never being that close. He wasn’t very clean at the time. I took him home with me so he could take a shower (alone) and I was going to let him stay on the couch for the night. He crawled into bed with me and tried to have sex with me, but I gently explained that I cared about him and that I couldn’t be his lover. I think he was upset about this for awhile, but I would sometimes run into him and his friends at a gay bar or on the streets and we’d talk. He eventually got an apartment and invited me to their housewarming party and I stopped by but I could tell he was going to try hook up with me and I didn’t want that so I said my goodbyes and left. That may have been the last time I saw him. He died of a drug overdose sometime between July 14 & 17 of 2010. I believe he was 18 when he died but my memories of this time are a blur and also, I was never very well informed on his life. I just knew it was sad.
When I was 17 years old I met a woman in a hospital room who told me she’d played pool with Minnesota Fats. She told me about her ties to the mafia & how I had to stay alive so I could wander down New York streets that I now feel guilty for forgetting.
I never forgot her, or her son, who had once played with Earth, Wind & Fire. Her son approached me at the mall – happy to see me alive; his mother had not been so lucky.
Now I sit at pool tables with a drink, watching others play what the hospital woman once told me was a wonderful way to unwind; a way to forget & remember & lose yourself with no need of drugs, razors, or even friends. I sit here & watch the players & have my drink, as I unwind & forget & remember the woman & her last breath of kindness.
Here where the sharks are people of every smile & shade of sorrow, I observe & am grateful to be alive & to witness what no one else can understand about the bald goth boy in the corner who smiles at the actions of strangers; not for the sharks themselves, though they do amuse me, but the game itself. It’s beautiful really.
Only last night I watched a great white demon of a man… a shark with the face of a god, who was stone cold seriousness while aiming for a shot… You should have seen this slip of perfection animating around the table – with nothing but the outcome in mind. In between shots he was all candy laughter smiles & warm blooded affections.
He said I was: Cute. Deep. Intriguing. Weird was good.
Of course people come looking for sharks here all the time; they come to capture, ensnare; be devoured… the sharks know this and are not impressed.
Maybe I’m a mystery to them because I’m not swimming in these waters out of lust, boredom or hunger… I’m simply swimming in the deep end of an ocean, admiring something about sharks that no one can touch. The momentous emotions that pass between unblinking eyes & unflinching hands; between moisture flecked lips & steadfast dancers legs. A swipe of tongue… A flicker… A breath… The glint of light overhead on numbered spheres as they clash, glimmer, escape solidarity – through the single deadly thrust of the pool shark’s decisive wooden lance.
The ghost of a shark lady smiles every time that they play & then I can smile too, while remembering her with me – as the world falls away.
Written By Jason Wright August 28, 2002
For Dug “the great white demon” – & in memory of the hospital woman.
Said that Ian had worked at Pizza House up until the end.
Didn’t know he was even back in Ann Arbor…
Briefly knew that Dear Friend.
And as it turns out, he didn’t survive me… though he once revived me; he is cold in the ground.
Only yesterday I thought I’d write… only not… & now to then learn he’s not even around.
Autumn once told me she’d written him off… not worth the cost… far beyond saving.
He couldn’t stop it… He couldn’t drop it… farewells & goodbyes; all he ever was saying.
Can’t stand the silence. Can’t stand the staring. Cure sang he’s NUMB – No cure for his fun – Did not really know him though I never stopped caring.
Written By Jason Wright December 31, 2001
For Ian
Explained:
Ian was a friend of friends. He was goth, and he had wild black hair that reminded me of Robert Smith of The Cure. He and Autumn visited me at Meijer when I worked there (between 1996 & 1999) and they picked me up to take me to a gallery where Autumn was having an exhibit while the museum was closed. He spoke with me about The Cure’s then new album, “Wild Mood Swings” (released: May 7, 1996) and later, after chilling at the Fleetwood he gave me a kiss goodnight at my car, despite me having a boyfriend in Florida. It was invigorating. My friend Paul had told me all about a guy he was hung up on named Ian but I didn’t make the connection. When I realized our Ians were one and the same, well, I stayed away. But I always liked him.
Ian was an addict. Heroin. Or so I was told. I’m sure it was true as all his old friends seemed to hate him based on his addiction and whatever shit he spewed on them as a result. He moved away. When I wrote my first poem about him I meant to send it to him but the people I asked had all come to despise him and weren’t interested in helping me find him. Later he returned to Michigan, and was actually working in a restaurant that I frequented (which itself was rare), but I never saw him there. He worked with people I knew, but they didn’t know that I knew him. And one night, my friend Carrie got in a fight with him and he left early, and he overdosed. And he died. And he was buried. And I found out maybe a week after all that from Dorian, who was a guy that I made out with once, who was a drug dealer, I think, and he and I would randomly cross paths now and again around Ypsi / Ann Arbor. When I asked my friend Carrie about it and explained that I had cared about him, she didn’t apologize or show any remorse or even the slightest bit of sympathy for me, and this hurt our friendship.
But to have written about him originally as someone who reminded me of people that I’d met in a hospital that I mostly outlived and that I found it comforting that he would survive, and then have him die, was very jarring. And it’s even more so now looking back at all this in 2026, over 25 years later.
And it is impossible for me to think of Ian and not think of “Numb” by The Cure from “Wild Mood Swings” – or hear the song and not remember Ian.
·We danced Friday night to that Friday night music –
The passion was there but I chose to refuse it –
The sobering sight of the children & their pride –
The heat & the night drew us all out from inside.
The girl by my side & the others who knew me –
They all made me smile & they all saw right through me –
They all knew my weakness for people & laughter –
They all knew I wanted the boy who came after:
The boy dressed in orange. The candy: raspberry. His friends were delicious. His laughter was cherry. Our goodbye was a smile. The night was colossal.
I always find joy when I’m profoundly hostile.
Written by Jason Wright May 6, 2000
For Melissa, Lee C, M.V., Maggie, Laurie, & Dawn, but mostly for Shawn – who’s reply made me smile.
Edit:
The artwork was meant to replicate the traffic that night in Ann Arbor. The above version is an expanded view of the original, which I’ll share here:
Melissa was a girl that my then roommate and ex-bf Mark Adams was trying to date. I drove us to the bar after getting food and stopping at a bank.
Lee C & M.V. were men I knew from online on GAY DOT COM (remember when that was a thing?), and though our paths crossed a couple of times, I never knew their full names, so I don’t know what ever became of them.
With Maggie Ernst and Shawn Foreman. June 9, 2000.
I met Shawn Foreman that night, along with Maggie Ernst, Laurie Prater and their friend Dawn. I dated Shawn and I was in love with him for years. That night he had noticed the scars on my wrists which endeared him to me right away, but I was pretty bitchy, even as I was trying flirt with him and he called me (with some affection) “profoundly hostile”. When he read this poem he reevaluated his opinion of me. We dated briefly, but intensely. We later hooked up a couple of more times over the years. And I last saw him in person in October of 2011, just 21 days before I met my partner, Aaron Sanko. But he and I still trade messages now and again.
With Maggie Ernst & Shawn Foreman. June 9, 2000, which was one of the happiest nights of my life.With Shawn Richard Paul Foreman at Pizza House. June 9, 2000.With Shawn and Maggie 06-09-00.
Maggie became a close friend but I later learned she was a compulsive liar, to me and about me. I dropped her on the spot, which was quite painful. I think Dawn visited me once with Maggie but I vaguely remember her and I hashing it out over gay rights and religious bullshit, which I believe ended with me calling her “a pathetic Jesus Licker”, which seemed to offend her at least as much as I’d hoped that it would and she never spoke to me again – which I considered mission accomplished – good riddance. Laurie is simply one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever met and we still trade messages occasionally – I last saw her in person at a Michigan theater in July of 2021.
With Laurie, Maggie, Shawn & Dawn. From June – November 2000. A very memorable time.
