For Mac Miller
“I wonder where we go when we die.”
“Pittsburgh?”
“You mean if we’re good or if we’re bad?”
—Bill Waterson, Calvin & Hobbes
They found you but
before that before
dead at 26 and grief
tweeted like an emoji
wave across the great blue
Panopticon, there was
you. Soft in a fist
of freeways. Shuffling
in socks and Adidas slides
to Sheetz, one fresh-fried-
mac-and-cheese-dipped-
in-boom-boom-sauce
glow. Before apparent
overdose in Los Angeles
home, there was your flow.
The dead tree in the backyard
where you dug deep
for your old grin, found it
dusty with what
you swore you’d never
touch again. You covered
sallow skin for the camera,
squeezed eyes tight
before the cold flash
there was Frick Park. Happiness
carried like a stereo on a warm night
by the three-pronged river,
the rusty mirror tossing stars
back up, so all the kids
on all the slate roof tops caught
light in their teeth. These were
the real gold grillz, before
loneliness like a house
in Hollywood Hills
and the man with
NO WOMAN NO CRY
tattooed over his heart
leading a string quartet
of blues, there was
a boy catching all
the light he could
carry, his smile
a song, his sneakers two
scuffed doves flying
over the yellow bridge.
READ MORE
Mac Miller found dead of suspected overdose at 26 [Variety]
Mac Miller is finally making the music he’s always wanted to make [Vulture]
Watch Mac Miller’s intimate final performance of ‘Hurt Feelings’ [Rolling Stone]
Clare Welsh is a writer and photographer based in New Orleans. Her work has appeared in Offbeat Magazine, McSweeney’s, Southern Glossary, Nailed Magazine, and other places in print and online. Her chapbook Chimeras is available through Finishing Line Press. She is currently working on a full length poetry book about wild dogs.
Photo by ShotByDrew.
