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.
That hour when (where) boys were not all they seemed –
Looking back at that boy who would seek and destroy me long after the fact… I could not react…
In my memory intact I am cursed and I screamed.
Written by Jason Wright January 8, 2000
For Patrick: Please Forgive Me.
Patrick was a boy I met on vacation who showed an interest in me, who I should have reacted to but didn’t, which is something I have always regretted, though I know I was trying to do what I thought was right. And we parted on good terms, with a hug goodbye, but it feels like an unresolved thing.
Someone that I don’t really know, whose appearances are always brief and electric, who I wanted before I knew his name and long before his sweetest confession.
Carrie zipping up Nate’s jacket and Nate sitting by the back windows at the pictured and infamous Denny’s, circa 1999?
In the late 90s I spent nearly every night at a Denny’s located at 3310 Washtenaw Avenue in Ann Arbor, which was permanently closed on March 30, 2022, and has since been demolished to make way for a new Chick-fil-A. Gross.
That’s where I knew Nate from. I never knew his last name. I didn’t think I stood a chance with him but he said something really cryptic to me once that turned heads…but I only saw him once after that and it was in passing and he looked like he had really been put through the wringer. It wasn’t the kind of situation where I could talk to him and I never really knew him very well, so he just disappeared from my life. I hope he’s good.
