jonberger

Once
this was the fattest I’d been.
Now
it’s the thinnest I’ve been
(not really, but… y’know).
It’s all about context.

Over twenty years ago
I was just slightly heavier
than my current weight.
It was probably my greatest weight
but I had held it for a while.
It was my adult size:
two twenty.
I knew I was chunky
but I tried not to let it bother me.

I met a woman
and it didn’t seem to bother her
but other things did
and in only a few months
she was done with me.

It had an outsized effect
and I stopped eating
for a couple of months
and two twenty
melted into one eighty
which is the thinnest I’ve ever been
at this height.

With that weight
I felt some sort of confidence.
Confidence enough to eat again.
Confidence enough to continue eating
my way up
to three hundred pounds.

It took a while.
It took a month or three to lose so much;
It took a year or twelve to gain so much back.

But now
with meds
and a veteran’s eye
(but mostly meds)
I have found it in me to lose again
and I can sometimes see two hundred and ten.

It is not my best
– far from it.
I remember sliding into envelopes –
but it is far
– far far –
from my worst
and I continue to try.

Right now
that is good enough.

I used to feel much more betrayed
in most of my close friendships
before I uncovered my inner shallowity.
Since that discovery, though,
things have run far more smoothly.

People used to fail
to live up to my unspoken expectations.
They still do.

I still expect too much
and I still unspeak my expectations
far too often to be healthy
– I know that –

but one of my biggest expectations,
I realized, decades ago,
was that all my friends
should climb the same tree fort
day after day
week after week
if they wanted to stay friends with me.
If they didn’t make that effort,
they could just fall by the wayside
…which they did.

People would make efforts
but I decided I was being open enough
by being available where we had met
and built the bones of our bon ami.

Any other effort on my part was unnecessary.

Thus
was my gracelessness constructed
brick upon brick upon brick.

It took me a while to see the results
especially after the tree fort
was cut down.
Friends faded from my preoccupation
and I thought again about betrayals
and causes.
Oh! And shallowity.

I thought about that a lot, too.

He remembered how, at the start,
he thought this would be a good time
for his creativity.

He smiled a sad little smile,
thinking back on his naivete
as he dodged a flying monkey
at the edge of a cliff.

It’s true. I think about you
so much less than I used to.
The chemicals help.
I have drugged myself senseless
so I don’t think the way I used to
so the things that once would drag me down
are no longer much of an impediment in my day to day.
You are little more than an afterthought
but then again
so many other things
have been swept aside as well
like, uh… well…
see…
I guess my attention span
is one of the things that I’ve lost lately, huh.
But it’s worth it.
I’m better off now than I used to be
I know that.
Or… I think I am, at least.
How would I be able to know… for sure?

I wake up groggy now and morning wood is more like
a morning stick that’s easy to snap
or better – butter that melts away in the morning sun.
Which I guess is easier than the alternative.
Who has time for that kind of a distraction
when you’ve got to get ready for work
and become a good citizen,
when you’re so groggy in the morning?
It’s a hassle just to wrestle yourself into shape.
I’m glad there are no interruptions.

I wouldn’t say I’m happier now
but I’m settled, you know?
Everything is on an even course.
I don’t get those wild fits of fancy
that kept me up all hours,
calling you pre-dawn
yelling, asking you over and over again
why the ducks didn’t come to Central Park anymore
or if Robert McCloskey was still alive
– I looked it up. He isn’t. Not for a long while. Silly question really.
Anyway, I’m in better shape now, steadier.
Balanced. The highs may be lower,
but the lows are much higher,
so there’s that.
And anyway…
anyway….
what was I saying?

Never meet your idols
or if you do
have something to say to them,
for gods’ sakes.
Don’t just murmur,
“I really loved your work
in Three’s Company, Mister Roper,”
with your eyes on your shoes
and your mouth dry as crud.

Be intriguing.
Be something they’ll be able to talk about
or talk to
or buy drinks for
or go to a Meeting with.

Be prepared
when you meet Tom Lehrer
– and act fast, for gods’ sakes.
The man is 95. Time is short,
and he’s probably heard every compliment in the book
and every clever line under the sun.

But never meet your idols
and if you’ve got to,
have something for them to sign
and bring a Sharpie
because they don’t always carry one with them.

This is ridiculous.
I should have deleted these long ago
lest some mastermind steal these gems of genius!

I have uncovered
a Notes File from Yesteryear
where I logged all my best
and most transient ideas
before I could forget them.
I then forgot about the file
which is foolish
for it was filled with a fortune of fantastic formulations!

Here are the finest:

No one’s most.
No one’s first.
No one’s best.

He’s got a harem.
I’ve got nothing.

Mush mouth by nature

Even the disgusting and indigent
are uninterested in me.

God I loved you
but now
I’m beginning to wonder
if you exist.

I really want to punish you
for what you’ve done

It’s become kind of important
that I have the chance to sleep with your sister.

Suicide cheese

See what I mean?
Suicide cheese. Suicide cheese?
Who comes up with that?
I come up with that
and then can’t even remember it.
You’re welcome!

How do you follow something like this?

Seriously, tell me.

As evergreen corpses riddle the streets
I think of the sturdy model
standing tall in my mother’s home,
collected, resolved, prepared to do our bidding
throughout this season – and longer.

Sick of the cycle of torture of trees,
we opted to purchase one thing once
rather than killing consistently,
year after year
after year after year.

So we bought a six foot plastic tree
and, thinking better of it,
bought a seven and a half foot plastic tree
that suited our needs in a superior way.
No more would we pick perennials to plaster in the apartment.
Now, there was something more permanent
something environmentally sound.

It cost about as much as one year’s natural,
so it paid for itself immediately.
So what if its carbon footprint
is off the charts?
How was I to know
the petrochemicals involved in its production?
What do you expect me to be:
aware?

This is the best I could do
with what I had
at the moment of truth.
It is better than I did before.
Or maybe it’s worse
but I don’t have to put the tree away before it sheds.
That’s something.

Is it the chocolates I ate?
Upset stomach!
Did I start sleep too late?
Upset stomach!
Too much raisins or dates?
Upset stomach!
It must be veggies I hate!
Upset stomach!
Upset stomach!
UPSET STOMACH TONIGHT!

Turn it up one!

Could it be that kale shake?
Tummy ache!
Drinking and dancing with Jake?
Tummy ache!
Chewing gold, surely fake?
Tummy ache!
Is it the cake? It’s the cake!
Tummy ache!
Tummy ache!
TUMMY ACHE ACHE ACHE!

Turn it up one!

Gut pain!
Dag, this really does hurt!
Gut pain!
Apologies for your skirt.
Gut pain!
I didn’t mean to just spurt.
Gut pain!
At least I’ve held in all the squirts.
Gut pain!
Gut pain!
Gut pain!GUT PAAAIN TONIGHT!

Turn it up one!

Gaah!
What’d I do?
Gaah!
I gotta pooh!
Gaah!
Feelin’ like astroturf.
Gaah!
Did I eat a smurf!
Gaah!
I’m shittting blue!
Gaah!
Oy, did I have to pooh!
Aaah…

You may ask me why I’m such a lonely guy.
Despite everything I have, I can only reply,
“I’ve got my reasons. Through all the seasons
I find myself alone.
“Whether intimate or polite at the end of the night
in the the din of dawn’s returning light,
I opt never to bone.”

I didn’t fuck her because I’m too fat.
I didn’t fuck her because she was too young.
I didn’t fuck her because of that old Marxist conundrum:
“Never enter a club who’d have you as a member.”
And this member has not entered anything
in quite some time.

I didn’t fuck her because it’s too messy.
I didn’t fuck her because I’m so pure.
I didn’t fuck her since the stars are unaligned,
her bones are too fine, we’re out of red wine,
I’m much too demure.

I’m not prepared. I don’t remember how.
I couldn’t tell you where. She didn’t sign the papers
or provide explicit authorization in the affirmative.
I’m not sure if the strategies I knew are even up to date at this point.
What if there are new developments that I haven’t heard of?
There ARE new developments that I haven’t heard of?
Do they have ridiculous names like the Macarena Clyde
or the Higgledy Piggledy Eight?
EXACTLY like that?
I knew it!

That’s why I didn’t fuck her!
I didn’t fuck her ‘cause it wasn’t the time.
I didn’t fuck her since she wasn’t mine to fuck.
I didn’t fuck her as we hadn’t agreed.
I didn’t fuck her; I just spilled my seed on me.

It’s been a while since the Big One,
back when I did that unholy mathematic workout,
producing the number of poems of the day of the month.
So: three pieces on the third,
eight pieces on the eight,
seventeen pieces on the seventeenth,
and thirty pieces on the thirtieth.
It was in April, National Poetry Writing Month,
so I didn’t have to go the full 31 days.
That would’ve been a mothering F.

It was my first year trying out NaPoWriMo,
as some awful people try to write it.
I didn’t plan ahead of time what I was doing;
I just hit the ground writing.
I can’t believe I had a full time job at the time.

I remember there were some technical problems
getting all the pieces online
at the time
but the details are escaping me now.
It was a while ago.

I ended up with over 465 pieces, I believe.
I’ve never accomplished something quite so majestic since.

The quality?
Oh, who knows about the quality.
I guess some of the pieces I wrote were all right.
I find that enough macaroni gets thrown,
some’ll stick.

I threw a lot of macaroni that April.
I had inspiration.