Poetry / Saint Stephen

His crooked smile said it best
but the words he spoke said it all,
“I just glanced in the mirror…
Things aren’t going so good…
I’m looking California and feeling Minnesota.”
Then he lit up a cigarette
taking a drag like there was no tomorrow.
I couldn’t help but admire
the way he held it between his lips.
The look in his eyes told me more than
the words coming from his mouth.
Even the smoke that rose to form a halo around his head
of this unsuspecting saint
seemed to be sacred.
It was then I felt a kinship with him,
this stranger who had stumbled into my world
quite accidentally.
I didn’t know him from Adam,
it was a “friend of a friend” kind of thing.
His soul had touched mine in a way I couldn’t explain.
It was kinda creepy,
but nice, if you know what I mean.
We find that we belong to the same “club”,
the one where admittance is exclusive
but for once you’d rather your name wasn’t on the list.
Inhabiting the same crazy fucked upside down world
where everyday people go about their lives,
while we, on the other hand,
can’t help but be all tangled up in what we feel.
So when I hear him rambling on
in his gritty Marlboro man voice
“everyone seems either so perfect and perfectly delicious,
or so utterly repulsive to me at this very moment…”
I can’t help but laugh at how much I can relate.