The Money He Made from the Movie

 With the money he made

From the movie

He bought a plane ticket home

And bought his Mom

A gift at the airport

Despite the fact

That it was marked up higher

Than it would be anywhere else

A nice bracelet

Not a charm bracelet

But one that would hang low

On her wrist

And something she would never buy

For herself

When he got home

One of his sisters
Pulled him aside right away

And asked if he could help her out

With rent for the month

After telling her

That he was also short on cash

And that’s why he was going to be

Crashing at home

For the foreseeable future

His sister quietly but forcefully

Accused him of lying

‘Weren’t you just in a movie?’

He comes from a neighborhood
Where there are no levels

To success

When you’ve made it

You’ve made it

And that means

You’re not just successful

But you’re famous

And certainly

If you’re famous

You’re rich

Everyone he knew growing up
Wraps all those things together

Because the idea

That you could land a role in a movie

And not be rich

And not be set for life

Would be so upsetting to them

The idea that once you get

To what you thought
Was the top

There’d be another summit

You have to reach

He thought the same thing

When he booked

His first commercial

Then the check came in

And he was shocked

That it would barely

Cover his rent for the month

Kicking down a door

And finding another door there

Was more demoralizing

Than the four years of rejection

He experienced

Before booking his first big gig

He was taught

That life was a race

And once you won

You could stop running

Maybe nobody tells you

That it’s a series of races

Because who would even bother?

Just hang out at the starting line

And kill time until you die

That’s what his older brother was doing

Sitting out on his mom’s back patio

Talking about the medicinal properties of cannabis

And lifting the same five-pound weight

Over and over again

With seemingly no results

Everyone in his family

Has noodle arms

And great thighs

And the girl that dumped him

Before he had to leave L.A.

And head back to Burlington

Told him on their first date

That she’d always wanted a man

To pick her up

And carry her to bed

Which should have been a sign

That he was never going to make her happy

She was a tiny girl

But he couldn’t lift

More than a few plastic grocery bags at a time

And he blamed his father

Who was lean and lanky

Because those genes were only valuable in California

In the early 90’s

When heroin chic was in

But now it was all about muscle

And that was something he could never put on

His mom set up the basement for him

Complete with a pull-out

That had a bar on the side of it

Where he would typically sleep

For some reason

He’d always liked curling up

On the left side of any bed

Curled up in a ball

Not interested in being touched

Or held or holding anyone

He didn’t believe it to be

An intimacy thing

Just his temperature

Which always veered

Towards scalding

Even in the coldest rooms

With the money he made

From the movie

He was able to buy pizza

For the family

And that was nearly the last of it

But there was no point trying to save

Something that would eventually

Disappear
In the same way things do

When they were never that much

To begin with

He bit into that first slice of pizza

From the place he hadn’t gotten pizza from

Since he left home years ago

And the experience of eating it

Where he was eating it

With the people around him

Was such a rush of callback

That he had to stop

And take a deep breath

His mother asked him

If he was ‘Okay’

And he smiled at her

When he said ‘I don’t think so’

But she couldn’t hear him

Over all the others talking

Asking him

What it’s like

To be a star