Imaginary

To see,

My mother would kill to see.

In touch

With reality, but 

Image

Is abstract like He.

You see,

He

Was my very best friend.

His cachet

And His infamy

Were characterized by

Big hands

And big feet.

Like me,

He fit in between.

Not man,

Not ape,

So He must be obscene.

The people around

Do not look like we,

So we’d scatter

And hide

And wander the trees.

We’d play and we’d run

Till we couldn’t any more;

For the need to go home

Trumped the need to explore.

I’d ask Him to join me

For dinner each night:

“My family can’t judge,

My mother is blind.”

Through the front door,

My mother would greet

But He would not greet,

He’d shuffle his feet.

So we’d eat

And He would eat more,

And my mother would

Watch us.

I knew my mother’s rules,

He could not spend the night.

Every night He’d

Roar and cry

With tears of ice

And tears of fright.

And so would I;

For I knew no friend

Like Him at school,

Because 

The people around

Don’t look like we.

We are outliers,

Pariahs,

Monsters,

Creatures. 

Not man,

Not ape,

Not anything,

No features.

And there came a time

When I realized we

Did not exist

And we couldn’t be loved.

Mother’s dinner table

Might as well be empty,

Because when

You’re hurt at school

And invisible at home

It kills you.

To see,

My mother would

Kill to see.

She will

But she never will.

And He?

Well,

He was like me.

Dead.