• Facebook
• Instagram

Eminem Must Imagine I’m His Biggest Fan

Alex M. Frankel

__________

Hey Alex, Eminem made you something special!

“At the crib playing Fortnite with your grandma”

Numbered gold vinyl exclusively for Spotify stans.

Limited quantity available, act fast while supplies last!

So I’m not just a fan, I’m a stan

Just because I use hip hop and three pink noise devices

To drown out the tumult of roofers

Busy trampling and hammering

Over my head all day while I sleep.

It’s genius, the beat of rap and ear-splitting waterfall fury,

I sleep like a child of fifteen

But I’ve barely heard the artist’s words. 

I note he has 72 million listeners on Spotify alone

While Stravinsky has barely half a million

And Simon Sechter has a measly 84,

Which surpasses me who have zero. 

I once saw a clip of an Eminem show

And fixated on one girl’s transported face, the devotion,

Connectedness and joy pouring into and out of her. 

I know poets who’d give their right arms for such love

But I wonder at his happiness quotient,

How does it feel to have 72 million stans,

Does he exist so thrilled he can’t eat or sleep?

With 72 million I would levitate to the empyrean,

I’d have godlike whims and godlike notions,

What need would I have of the real Lord God? 

The last time I ever gave a reading

Only four homeless showed up because I brought snacks.

Tummies full, they had a lovely snooze as I recited.

My voice was to them what Eminem’s beat is to me,

Allowing me to defy the roofers,

Sleep through the most extreme foot-stomping racket

And kicking and yelling in Guatemalan Spanish. 

Instead of feeling envy, I should offer thanks to Eminem

For helping me to find sleep in a hellish predicament.

Thank you, Eminem! When I wake at 6 p.m.

The roofers are gone, it’s dark, I dawdle by the fire

And enjoy my Christmas tree though it’s February 1. 

These days Spotify recommends Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Notorious B.I.G.,

Stravinsky and Sechter have long been pushed out.

What’s it mean to be a Stan of sixty-three

While I wilt by the fire and stare at my tree?

I’ve got one fan and that is my hamsta

What’ll she do when I turn full gansta…

The hearth fire crackles me to sleep, I shave my head

And then shave Eminem’s cold head, he kisses my goatee.

Nothing wrong with lying on this rooftop.

We are both deaf mutes, consume 72 servings of 50 Cent.

Monstrous eighteen-wheelers and wilting peasants float by,

Fortnite has gone to our guts.

___________

Playlist song: Eminem, “Tone Deaf”

__________

Alex M. Frankel left Spain in the 1990s to settle in Southern California, occasionally publishing under the name Alejo Rovira Goldner. He has written poetry, non-fiction and plays, and his latest chapbook is called So Many Mouths at the End of All Beauty.

__________

🢠 Back Next 🢡

To learn more about submitting your work to Boudin or applying to McNeese State University’s Creative Writing MFA program, please visit Submissions for details.