The 375 (943) Poet

Mazin was depressed, reserved, a poet yearning for fame. His depression taught him not to hope or dream. That nothing good would ever happen to him. That he could not make things happen even if he wanted to.

Mazin looked at his life and thought, my God what is the point? I have nothing to show for myself, all these years have come to nothing.

But he was still able to write poetry. He wrote notebook after notebook, filled up every page with his cursive script. He knew what he wanted. He was not confused as to what his life should be.

The countless times he visited his best childhood friend, Lowell, in Southern California, he could catalogue his memories of that time. They went into a bookstore on the corner of a strip mall that was full of books—the kind that smells like books.

Back in 1995 when there were no cell phones and no constant contact, not endlessly connected to one another they swung open the minivan door and rolled it back on its track. Then they jumped into the van that always smelled of sour milk and Janis’s perfume.

Now Mazin was on his own, living at the Crossroads. It was an apartment complex near The Woods. So many people were figuring out ways to make money and all Mazin could do was write poems that made no money. People were monetizing their content. But there was a time back in 2013 when he technically should have been paid for his content and his contributions to the internet's algorithms and platforms. But he was always granted no followers. Blame the algorithm, right?

When Lowell’s parents announced they were getting a divorce Mazin and Lowell were devestated. Lowell moved to Southern California. Mazin could visit. Which, he did. Often. Both of their fathers were airline pilots, and so they could travel for free.

Visits to Lowell in southern California were enchanted.

Lowell’s parents tried to work it out and so they bought a big house on a hill. There were avocado groves for miles around although farming them was not part of the deal.

Lowell’s big house in Temecula/Marietta was magical.

Everything was electric, when Mazin was a little kid visiting California. The lights at night reflected on the blacktop. The neon lights of the stores, so bright, a fluid electric light. The prismatic technicolor Valencia sunlight. Things were so bright and so beautiful, back then. His depression flatted everything and made it darker. The depth of the electricity was gone now. Everything was boring now.

Oh, visiting California. Mazin wanted to stay there forever. He was not tired of Lowell. He did not want to go home.

Mazin could remember what his grandmother said. Guests are like fish; they stink after three days.

Mazin loved Southern California. The dusty hills, the city of San Diego and Horton Plaza, Los Angeles, and the Sunset strip. The highways, vast and wide. When Janis was driving them around, she would park in some random place, next to hay bales. Lowell, Mazin, and the little brothers ran around the place, while Janis slept in the van. The ranchers would watch the kids running around the car and the hay bales and say, where is your mother?

Lowell would point to the van and say, shes taking a nap. She is bipolar. She might have another seizure if she does not get enough sleep.

Mazin knew fame was not an option. But fame was coming soon. He wafted between these two extremes. Sometimes Mazin would think about California and visiting his childhood best friend.

Lowell used to tell Mazin about his parents' problems and how his mother Janis would sleep all day in bed, in the darkened master bedroom.

Your father hates me, Mazin said to Lowell and Lowell replied, I know.

Mazin was devastated. It was one of his earliest memories of pain. Saying goodbye to his best friend, and that they hoped they would see each other, they would, again. Mazin went to the airport to see Lowell and his family off. They both cried. Lowell’s father rolled his eyes. Mazin hated being hated.

Mazin has not spoken with Lowell in over fifteen years. He saw him at a Christmas party in Decatur the last time. They had a fun time drinking Jell-O shot and looking at the homemade ornaments Lowell and his boyfriend, Faulkner, made for their Christmas tree.

Mazin envisioned the day when he might reunite with Lowell.

Mazin lives alone now, eating canned tuna and contemplating earth, the world, and things. They would play for hours, innocently.

Mazin met a girl at the park. He went one day to sit on the bench and write poetry. The girl introduced herself. Joelle Beecham. She had just gotten a new tattoo. It was of a rose and a moth, but the moth looked more like a butterfly.

I have a crush on the tattooer, she said.

She was full of light and love and smiling and deep thoughts. He liked the girl. There was nothing he could do but pine away and write her poems.

Mazin wrote a love poem to the girl from the park. He thought about her. His dreams were filled with her smiling face and her tattoo. He went a bit crazy.

There was no way to become a famous poet with dreams of a childhood spent awkwardly in California, sometimes. He knew he had to be good and that he was not particularly good.

They met at the park again the following week. The way she looked at him was pure poetry. Except that when she spoke, she spoke of the tattooer.

He has been tattooing for fifteen years. If we were to start dating imagine all the free tattoos I could have! He could make me his creation. I am ready for it. Anything he wants to do, and I am there for it. He could make me one of those suicide doll pinup ladies. Oh my God. I can just imagine it now.

Then Joelle winked at him, stared him in the face, and winked at him.

In that wink Mazin felt butterflies beating their wings in his chest. He did not care for the tattooer one bit, but she was not with the tattooer, she was with him. The tattooer was no problem. He was a mere fantasy. Part of her imagination. Her new tattoo was good, but it was not great. Mazin could imagine Joelle’s perfect white skin blemished by a range of tattoos. He would not let it happen.

You should not get any more tattoos, he said one day, while they were sitting together on the swings, side by side and watching pigeons peck at the granola bar crumbs fallen to the ground from some kids eating. The playground was full of shouts and the laughter of children. It was unseasonably warm for early March, and a feeling of spring was in the air and in the trees, the swirling leaves hung on branches, the grass waving in the wind.

Joelle looked at the blooming rose on her forearm and squinted at it in the fading afternoon light.

No more tattoos. You will look messy. Mazin said.

But I like the way it looks. To be full of them. Every inch of skin covered. And besides, I am in love with the tattooer. Joelle said.

I thought they called themselves tattoo artists. Mazin replied.

The proper term is tattooer. It says so on his business card, see?

And Joelle pulled a business card from her jacket pocket and waved it in front of Mazin’s nose. He plucked the rectangular piece of paper from her fingers and scrutinized it. The name of the tattooer in a bold font across the front and it said tattooer smaller, underneath the man’s name.

Well, if he makes them all look like that rose then maybe you should get more done up on you. Mazin offered, even though he loathed the idea of Joelle turning to the tattooer for any services or whatever, any length of time and withstanding his attentions.

Mazin wanted to urge her against spending more money or time or energy on the tattooer. But she did not seem convinced that it was not a grand idea. She pushed her sneakers into the dirt under the swings and made tracks with her feet.

Mazin twisted on his swing slightly and went this way and that until the swing stopped and was still.

The thing was, Joelle spoke to Mazin like they had known each other for a long time, like she knew him very well. He was able to talk with her about everything and even found himself mentioning his boyhood spent in the avocado groves of Southern California with Lowell, who he was now no longer in touch with, unfortunately.

Mazin also found himself confessing to Joelle all manner of his hopes and dreams, his desire to be a famous poet, and his lifelong love affair with poetry, even though he had been unsuccessful in memorization of the greats. That was except for Emily Dickinson, whose poem 375 (943) A Coffin—is a small Domain, yet able to Contain, A Citizen of Paradise, In Its Diminished Plane, had become a sort of obsession of his.

He tried to research the poet's meanings behind the words and to come to an understanding of just what she was conveying with that specific poem. It is obviously about death. A Grave is a restricted breadth. Yet ampler than the Sun. And all the Seas He populates and lands he looks upon.

Joelle smiled brightly, nodded cheerfully, her bangs framed her perfect face and she looked, he thought, very much like a living doll. He imagined her sitting in his apartment on the bright colored floral vintage couch. The pastel and metallic rainbow colors set off as a backdrop behind her translucent skin.

It is just a trick of the light, Mazin thought, and he smiled at her warmly and nodded as if to say, we belong together, every day.

Joelle did not usually talk about herself and when she did, she spoke about the tattooer, the man of her dreams.

I am going to be with him one day, you know. And I will be his blank canvas. And he is the artist who will transform me. Can you imagine being covered in tattoos from head to toe? Well, I can. And he is the one to turn me into my perfect image.

It pained Mazin when she spoke this way about the tattooer. But when he asked her about her plans, she did not have any.

He did not ask me out. And I ran out of money so I cannot go back to get more ink done. It is a catch 22 I am afraid. That stupid dolt, he should have asked me out! What was he thinking? He talked about some movie he saw recently. Where the main man and main woman fall in love but cannot be together. Do you think he was referring to him and me? Was it about how our love can never be?

You are reading too far into it. It sounds like he has plenty of options for girlfriends who want free tattoos. Mazin replied, dryly.

Well, geez. When you put it like that…But it is more than that. It would be the love of a lifetime to be an artist's work of art. I trust him with my entire life. He should know that. How can I tell him? Will you go with me to the tattoo shop?

Mazin felt sick about the possibility of Joelle confessing her undying love to the tattooer in front of him one day. He shook his head and said, what about us?

What about us? Joelle asked.

What about you and me? Mazin worked up his courage to ask her, while in the back of his head he was reciting Emily’s poem 375 (943) from Final Harvest.

Mazin did not know. What he knew was that she was pining for the tattooer who had recently given her a blooming rose tattoo on her forearm. She was swooning and there was nothing Mazin could do except listen compassionately as one who knows the outcome of some weird tragedy. The tattooer clearly knew the power of his attraction. He was talented. Had he ever wanted to cover Joelle’s body from head to toe, she would have made a fine canvas, and he would have made a lot of great art. But Mazin doubted that this man, the tattooer, wanted a thing to do with Joelle. She was simply one of many other customers who had developed a passionate crush.

Now the trick was how to convince Joelle that Mazin was the one for her. He could not draw on her perfect skin, but he could write notes on her heart, mind, soul, and whisper sweet nothings to her across the pillows of his soft and comfortable bed.

Mazin was a poet who never made his bed. How could he become famous was his next inquiry to the universe. He had read books about manifesting reality, and he knew very well that there was power in words and in setting intentions. But truthfully, he had never managed to make anything remotely dreamlike come true in his own temporal and besotted life.

Mazin waved goodbye to Joelle as she drove away from the parking lot beside the playground and the park where they had sat on swings debating the merits of confessions of love to quite unrequited dream lovers.

Mazin thought he made a valiant attempt to convince her when he said, you fair lady are the one I have been waiting for forever and I would love to write poems on your heart. I may not be able to write them upon your skin permanently, but I have a way with words that is quite compelling, if you will just grant me the chance to show you.

And then Mazin said, Mom wow I am but a prisoner of wars, pow, mod beauty powerful woman, oh wow I do vow as a knight in the nightmare of deaths and be oaths saying has say has say yes and says see, be with ebbing and be with me being enjoying in joys that move and come over, see oh me my way have having lover.

And Joelle giggled a little and looked down at her tattoo. Mazin’s poem looked better on paper, it was true. Aloud it was a messy fright of words. On paper it looked like words flipped in reverse.

Joelle my backwards wild star, started and hearted and then when she is yesterdays skin…but I love her, want her, and need her so soft and sorry and sooner than nowhere’s ever been enough before. You are the only skin I can see. Put roses upon roses and flowers on me. I will walk you homemade. Nowadays everyone has what they need. He will use you for forgiving food. Your skin like a game. Your face like a mood. It is written in verse that comes to my mind. You are everyone everywhere, the entire world, the rind, and the rhymes my fair sweet girl.

When Mazin got home he looked around his apartment and opened a window in the kitchen to let in some air. He was infinitely inspired by Joelle and her love of the tattooer. He also loved the fact that she was never going to have him as her owner or creator. Joelle was a pretty girl. But she was not twenty-seven anymore. She wanted the whole thing too badly to have it. How many women were out there pining for the tattooer who had posted photos of interesting things all over his social media page. He was traveling the world. Then he was taking a wild hike. Then it was the city of Japan at night. He could have supermodels, sure. Why would he want Joelle? Clearly the tattooer was looking for something more than just a skinny white girl from the suburbs with messy hair who wanted to be doodled on in a state of absolute permanence.

Mazin laid down on his bed and opened his arms wide. Lucifer jumped up on his chest. Lucifer was a naughty cat, but he could be so sweet sometimes. Then he caught a tiny grey mouse and batted it around on the end of his claws.

Leave it alone, Mazin said, half commanding and half suggesting to the calico cat.

You are a fucking poem; you know that right? Mazin said.

The cat arched his back and stuck out his tail. There was a little bit of blood smeared on the yellow and white speckled linoleum floor.

Lucifer, no. Bad boy. Be advised by Do Right. Oh, be bad paperwork. Mazin said.

The cat regarded him and then swatted at the mouse again. Mazin got up and tried to intercede. He guarded the mouse, ushered it away. The mouse ran and disappeared into a large crack in the wall. The cat licked his paw as if to say fine do as thou will.

Mazin recited aloud to his audience, the cat,

To Him who on its small Repose Bestows a single Friend— Circumference without Relief—Or Estimate—or End—

And he hoped he would see her again. They could meet at the park, maybe. But Mazin did not have her phone number. He could only swoon and envision blooming roses.