AJ Lewis Poetry, Poems: What Ernie Said (from "A Slip Of The Tongue")

in elementary school I was an outcast.
I had very few friends
and was picked on by a cruel bully named
Jeff
who rallied my classmates against me
to pick on me
to laugh at me
to treat me like
garbage.

this was at a Christian private school.
my parent's suffered and saved to send me
there; they wanted me to have a good education.

my parents were poor
so sometimes I didn't get a haircut for months,
and this would fuel the fire of my peers
and I would get made fun of for how I looked -
I would get laughed at
because my clothes were out of style
because I dressed poor
because I didn't fit into what was popular.

this was also where I met Ernie.

he was Mexican and had bad acne on his face.

both of us had a lot of common interests,
and both of us didn't fit in to what was considered the norm.

sometimes on the weekends we would hang out at his house.
he lived in a Mexican community in west Phoenix;
the houses were smaller and had chain link fences in the
front and back yards.
we would play video games
or go out with his older sister
who could drive.
his parent's were nice, and we would watch the Spanish stations
on the TV during the afternoon.

I considered him my best friend at the time.
it was nice to have someone to talk to.

at the end of our middle school term
Ernie approached me on the school grounds.

his voice sounded important
but I didn't expect what he was about to tell me.

"we are from two different worlds, you and me," he said, "and I don't know
how the two of us can be friends anymore."

"what do you mean?" I asked. I was shocked.

"you are white and I'm Mexican. you don't understand
the world that I come from."

I was angry. I felt betrayed. and he was probably right about it.
I didn't understand his world.
but did I really have to?

he left me there wondering,
and afterwards I didn't say much to him again.

when high school started at the Christian academy,
I realized that I didn't have a friend on the whole campus.
I got out of that place quick
and by the second semester I ended up at a public school,
which became a hell as well,
and I found out that I was even more alone
in a bigger world that
I didn't understand.

that experience...
my life...
Ernie drew the line between our worlds,
and I have been carrying his words with me since.

he turned his back on me,
and I became white
in a world of ethnicity.

yet, I still wonder about him
and where he is today.
he was my best friend,
lost to the world
and to himself.