Melissa

In memory of Melissa Benson. https://soundcloud.com/brett-hernan/melilssa

Melissa was a girl I thought
I was in love with
and who was in love
with me but I never knew
Melissa was in love
with no one.
(Some people
just get it like that).

Just after
I moved into my new place
in the city
I sat down and thought;
'You know, maybe now I'm back here,
in the city I can start to see Melissa again?'
Immediately, the phone rang
and my best friend told me,
"Brett, Melissa is dead."

I never really knew how
to tell anyone about her,
but I had a dream
where I was in a car
and I was in the back
and we were driving
upward
into the sky
through the clouds
and since it was sunset
everything was indescribably
gorgeous
I couldn't believe it
that we were so lucky
to be doing that,
it was all so very real
and not a dream at all,
and until it occurred,
I didn't realise that Melissa
was in the front passenger seat
and she quickly turned her smiling face
round to look at me, like,
'Hey Brett, are you getting this, too?'
and then she looked back
to enjoy it all
even more...

A girl just stood in front of me
as I sit here writing this
on a paper place mat
at a Mickey D's
and from behind I thought,
'Wow, that looks just like Melissa!
With the way her hair is Bobby-pinned up,
and she's got those ear rings
in the upper lobe of her ears,
I think they're called
something...
(I don't know.)

On that day I moved
into my new place in the city
we were driving along the highway
to get more boxes loaded with my stuff
and on the other side of the highway
an ambulance leapt passed us,
obviously going to the hospital,
with all of its lights and sirens on
and with a seriously valuable
and incredibly precious cargo inside,
and there were hardly any other cars
on the road for it to warn,
and I thought,
"Man, they're in a hurry like I have never seen!"
It was shortly before Sunset
on a day that shone
with the kind of beauty
which can only accompany
one of the last
days of summer
and the final thing
Melissa said was,
'Tell everyone that I'm sorry.'

You taught me one thing
that I didn't understand
that night I walked you home
from the city and in the street
where you told me
(like you always told me!) to;
"Go over there, right now
and stand there, right in front
of your reflection in that shop window,
and look yourself straight in the eyes...
Go on, look yourself straight in the eye,
and tell yourself this;
'My name is... Brett Anthony Hernan.'
and I couldn't get it right,
(no matter how many times I tried!)
and what you taught me Melissa
was that I too
can never really love anyone as well.

One day when I was
nearly blind I was on a bus
and I saw her boyfriend,
her real boyfriend,
who loved her
more than everything,
and who she never really left,
but also, was never really with,
(like I said, some people
just get it that way...),
and he was standing
there on the city street
openly weeping uncontrollably
and I knew he was mourning
and I wondered
if he'd seen me.
It would be impossible
for me
to imagine
their pain.

Everyone now knows
that you're sorry, Melissa
and I know
that you're forgiven.

Author's Note

This poem accompanies a song of the same title, so in reality both pieces do share in each others space, considering their initial offering as song and poem together on the one site. This is why there is included a link to the song, as an effort to keep this cohabitation intact.

Reviews

[PoeticChico]

What a wonderful piece, its heartbreaking yet so captivating. I enjoyed reading it, it truly made me emotional. thanks for writing this and sharing it.

[Brett Hernan]

You're a sweet man. I almost cry when I read it too.