Emmy

All the world’s a stage
The men and women simply players
You are the best actor I know
It is unfathomable to me how you weren’t discovered by some talent seeker in a dive bar
You see real actors, they are never themselves
The shadow of their true personality is an acquaintance they passed in a dark alley once, sometimes they meet up, have a drink but for the most part, he is a part that goes unnoticed
You are better than Angelina, Johnny, or even Clint and god knows I love Clint
People waiting to be discovered, they go home. Strip off the layers of the people they have slipped into like costumes, they unwind.
You are always wound, always in character
When I was a child, I thought I knew you
Your wives, fiancés or whatever they may be at the time will try to explain to me who you are
Who you have become for them
They never realize I spent nine years memorizing the parts of you that always slip in with who you want to be
I had years of a front row seat to your big break, Starring as the husband with wandering eyes and eventually hands , bringing home a check.
Between wives you slide into girlfriends too pretty or smart to fall for your act long
You call less and less because I am after all, part of your last act and this is a new one, a nice show with big lights and better pay
You paved the way to your second roll with minor guest appearances, the absent father, the hard worker and no one really knows what happened to you for eighteen months, there are whispers of rehab, maybe a movie overseas?
Your second blockbuster is a good old boy country back to roots saga , you play the cowboy husband and we are your second rate sitcom characters who wander in and out but rarely get lines. I know that you hate horses, your wife does not.
You scampered, shuddered, made your way to the third low budget down to earth movie just in time before your star faded. This is the cleavers with a Roseanne bite and we have no part in it, you are the country boy, the hard worker the patriot just trying to provide for his nuclear family.
I have always felt at home, walking onto your sets and taking my guest appearance, being introduced to the main characters of your life and then whisked away at the end of a weekend long show so you can keep living whatever roll you’ve decided is yours
I cannot sleep, in other people’s homes.
Your homes have always felt like my own, I too was an actor; for a day or two I could pull on the skin of someone else and call it life.
I don’t know, when that changed
Maybe it was between big shows two and three when you slipped on the role of the avenging father fighting for his daughter
But lifetime movies don’t pay well and you’ve never been good at sticking with it
So you slipped out and left me stranded in a bad Sunday morning movie with no plot and too many tears
Maybe that was when I stopped being able to sleep in your house
When I noticed that I was only coming here as an extra in your leave it to beaver life
When you stopped being able to look at me and only stared at the wall above my head as if you could find some part of what used to be there
I can only imagine that’s because you see far too much of yourself in me
Something beyond the too small eyes and too red hair
Something in clinging on to whatever role come next because God knows it’s better than this life
Better than two kids and child support
You see when you adopt kids for a role? You can abandon them for the next one, let them call you daddy and then walk away with no guilt but we’ve been the extras you couldn’t shake, following you from set to set , the faces they all know but they can’t really place because our names were whispered in a way to show we had them.
You have always had a problem with the truth
I have always tried so hard not to be you that I tell too much of it
I can’t keep my words in my head and I do not have that spark that makes you such a good actor
If this is your Emmy
Take it, call it life , call it who you are
I know there isn’t room for me in this life you’ve woven around yourself
I’ve come to realize there never really was.