The saddest guy
I've ever
known
painted 10,000
self portraits
and even
wrote an opera
about his life.
Some days
he'd shave
and be stuck
for hours
trying
to see his
own soul.
In bars,
the others
would crowd
around him:
he would sing and
tell jokes
and he had a smile
that no one
could look
look away from.
To him
women were
like ants
drawn to the
fresh dropped
and
half meltedice cream cone
that was
his life.
17 to 70
they all wanted
to save him,
make him better,
fix him.
Only the ones
who were the
most melancholy
appealed to him
and they
just as a way
to look
into the mirror
while sitting
in an orange
vinyl booth
in a darkened
corner
in the back
of Denny's
with the girls
who strolled in the night.
