Firecracker 

(for Nick Casey 9/16/2017)

I wanted to be like you when I grew up,

you, easily twenty years younger than I

was then, maybe twenty years younger

than time, twenty years younger,

suddenly an urgent desire of everyone

twenty years too early or late

for your dating line, men, women,

children, too, wanted to be around you, 

your easy laugh, and sass, and possibilities

that seemed endless, but your private

torment was, too, somehow unheard

but you were never unnoticed,

promise you, love, heads turned,

parties started, boyfriends and girlfriends

made jealous, lips moistened,

zippers checked, eyes averted,

hearts hoping, wallflowers opening,

you, a shot of 151 in a Mouseketeer cup,

you brought the energy up, 

the house down, cute as a button,

Everyone wanted you around.

except you.

the silence         

after fireworks,

the air burnt, acrid, 

hollow, heavy, steel

love for you but ironclad hate

for masks and bridges

and envied youth taken again

and again, I wanted to be like you, 

I was wrong but so are you, 

dead wrong to dim the light 

that shone so strong.

-pdk