Mike
and I
Mike is
the one they see:
the me
they think they know.
I see his
name written,
his
picture framed,
but I
think he is not me.
We live
in the same fantasies,
love the
same absurd humor,
but to
him, they are embellishment:
a proud
social display.
I cannot
hate him though.
I exist
so that he may create;
so that
he may justify me.
His
creations are valid too,
but they
are not my salvation.
They
cannot be the revealing vessel
that will
slip me from him
and into
immortality.
They do
not belong to me.
So I am
resigned to my oblivion,
hoping
some part of me
survives
the slant and exaggeration
of his
unavoidably fiendish nature.
Like all
things, I want to be myself.
Instead,
I shall be Mike.
When I
see me less in his creations
than in
the lending influences,
I ask
myself:
Am I a
lie?
Does my
own hope falsify me?
The
answer is printed on this page.
I have
created nothing.
Mike
wrote this,
and like
everything else:
it
belongs to him.
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