Mister Snuffleupagus

You wouldn’t know it but I’m Mister Snuffleupagus   Big Bird’s best friend on a street called Sesame   It took a lot of work to be Mister Snuffleupagus   No one really knows that   I did it for two and half years   Big Bird told me “Most people don’t last that long”   I didn’t want to be Mister Snuffleupagus   I did it for Big Bird   I thought he could really use a real friend   I went to the audition and I got the part   Each week there was a new audition and I always made the cut   I don’t really know why   Maybe they were impressed I did it all by myself   It usually took a team of two or three to be him   I blinked his eyes and fluttered his eyelashes   I moved all four legs, that tail and trunk   I sang and swayed and propped him up   All the lines I had to memorize   All the staying-out-of-the-way I did   There were others who had been Mister Snuffleupagus   But no one was as good as me   Maybe you noticed something different about him   When I was Mister Snuffleupagus   I noticed something different about Big Bird   He was happy   The view I had from inside the suit   I watched all the friends who came   And never saw me   I watched all the games you all played   I never got to play with anyone but Big Bird   He had me all to himself   I loved Big Bird   I guess that’s the reason I came back each week to audition   Big Bird and I knew each other without our costumes   We had seen the other’s face   He let me see his face   He said something about love and he took off his head   I took my head off too, but it was because I wanted to be seen in that love   Big Bird told me I could be replaced   Anyone could be Mister Snuffleupagus, he said   I argued back   It’s not true, I said   Only I could be Mister Snuffleupagus   The same way only he could be Big Bird   That year he turned forty-two   The year he knew the answer to the ultimate question to life, the universe, and everything   But he didn’t know the question   I was there   I was good at having feelings and having fun   But that isn’t proof of anything   Feelings   I was the expert at the small joys   The one who asked all the questions   After a while, I got tired of not being seen   I stopped auditioning   I guess I wanted to see if anyone would notice   My scenes were written off   I was abandoned and became obsolete   It happens to everyone, I guess   Not long after I had been gone   Everyone else moved out of the neighbourhood   Even the grouchy guy in the garbage can   Friends stopped coming over for dinner   The food went stale and the wheels fell off   Big Bird doesn’t know why   I do   When I was there   I was the one who held up all that magic for him   I was Mister Snuffleupagus   That’s why   Big Bird moved out of the neighbourhood too   There were other Mister Snuffleupaguses I am sure   But none were like me   Big Bird would never say that   Not to me   It would mean there was something behind all the play   Something real   Just because you have nothing to show for it   It doesn’t mean it wasn’t real   All the children are still there   Grown up now, of course   They don’t know what I made and did for them   Big Bird doesn’t either   I want to say what I never got to say   That it was me   That it was mine   It all belonged to me   I was there when it all happened   At the beginning   It isn’t in his stories or his books   I wasn’t even given a footnote   I wasn’t in the appendix   There was talk of a dedication once   But that fell through   Happiness embarrasses Big Bird   It’s easier to spit and swallow vitriol   He won’t ever say it   So I will say it for myself   Because I live in this world too   I am Mister Snuffleupagus