What We Talk About When We Talk About Michael Westen

You are only a handful of dress shirts, but you are a different man each time you wear them.  Walk, accent, tie or no tie.  It’s only when you’re stripped bare that I recognize you at all.  These days, you’re naked less and less often until I have forgotten all but entirely what you look like.

Florida heat has scorched our brains in a way mint and rum cannot fix.  We drink anyways.  My CIA contact says I should let the ghost of you go, but yogurt won’t ransom my heart back from Brennen. 

Ours is not a solution of bullets or gasoline.  We cannot be fixed with a quick wit or a fast car, a doctored cell phone and a stockpile of C4.  You’re lying low with fake papers in hand; even if I could catch up to you, I can’t say I’m sorry in any language you might speak.  Call your mother.  Maybe she knows what to do.

-The title of this comes from a conversation I had with my friend Mike about the seventh season of Burn Notice.  We were arguing about Westen’s sexxxing up of not-Fiona until I realized that I was seeing the episode as a metaphor for my then-ex-friend Jason.  This is also when I stopped watching Burn Notice.  That scene pissed me off that much.  Team Fiona 4 Life.

-I sent Jason this poem after we got back together.  His favorite line was “Ours is not a solution of bullets or gasoline.”

-The second half of line seven is my favorite line that I’ve written in anything ever.  Not only because I get to reference Jay Karnes (always a bonus), but because I just adore the rhythm of it.  My poetry teacher would be proud, except he’d probably be late to the poem anyways.

-“My CIA contact” is an allusion to Sam Axe, but used here, it’s in reference to the aforementioned Mike.  I think he was pleased by this.

-The last lines were written before the series finale.  It takes on a decidedly darker, more sarcastic tone now, which I’m happy about.