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A Poem for Leonardo DiCaprio

I fell for you like a suicide victim
After seeing you in This Boy’s Life. 
Robert Deniro played your asshole stepfather
Slapping you in the back of the head, beating the shit out of you
Over an empty mustard jar. He made you go out on paper routes. 

Forced you to trade in that Buddy Holly haircut & parched leather
Jacket for a Boy Scout uniform. 
You played the son he never had in a house full of girls. 
Ellen Barkin was your single mom 
Who just wanted a husband & a home to hang her wet pantyhose. 

I thought your performance was riveting 
As I sat in the worst movie theater in my hometown 
Watching you portray poet /writer Jim Carroll in The Basketball Diaries.
You were as skinny as Kate Moss.
Lorraine Bracco, who was your mother, said you would grow up to be a bum.

You & Mark Wahlberg were lost boys kicking up the shit of the city. 
Homosexual undertones stuffed in the pockets of your Catholic school blazers. 
In the subway scene where you let that old guy blow you
So you could get money to support your habit,
I know what you were feeling. I was right there with you man.

I knew then your face would be on the covers of Tiger Beat, Seventeen, Young and
Modern. You were about to become a fold-out poster on every teenage girl’s wall.
You should have been nominated for an Academy Award 
When you played Arnie, a mentally challenged kid in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.
Johnny Depp didn’t have nothing on you.

I fell for you like a star-crossed lover when you were in a pop-culture version of Romeo
+ Juliet. But I hated your guts when you drank poison for Claire Danes. 
Didn’t like you so much in The Titanic. You should have let Kate Winslet drown. 
Nothing’s been the same since that movie. 
There’s no room for me in your harem of teenaged girls armed w/ autograph books,

Blinded by your heartthrob stardust.
I can’t get past the gate of bodyguards. 
You’re too busy doing talk shows & photo shoots to take my calls,
To answer my letters. You’re a damn movie star. Instead of feeling all gooey inside, 
I’m all grossed out & fed up. Now I have moved on to a new actor to watch: Russell Crowe.

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