Is it fair to say I loved her
when I only watched her
from afar?
I thought about her
all the time.
I envisioned her
in innumerable fantasies.
I placed her
as a goal on my vision board
before I had a vision board
or really concretely developed goals.
She was my everything
but was she my love?
I didn’t know her
as much as I wanted to.
My picture of her…
that was loveable
but how close was it
to the real thing?
They sure looked alike,
I can tell you that.
There may be people I fucked over before S.
Nope. Can’t think of them.
I thought he was the coolest cat in the geek school
where there were no cool cats around whatsoever
and I befriended him
and he befriended me
and we did incredibly stupid things
like say, "Hey Jon! Let’s go get a pizza
and throw it at somebody!"
I didn’t say that. S. did.
We thought we were funny
and maybe we were.
Standards were low.
I’d been real lonely in Junior High
when I went to a school where I didn’t know nobody
and though high school had more familiar faces
I made an immediate effort
not to be alone
so I might have been pushy with S.
We spent a lot of time together.
He was my best friend
but when he said it,
"You’re my best friend,"
I ran away.
I built distance.
I stopped sleeping over.
I found other people to endear.
I couldn’t explain why then
though it seems clearer today.
Who doesn’t love the chase?
Over the year
we developed a new balance
where we weren’t quite so close
though I liked him fine
and then next year
I saw how cool S. was.
Everyone was laughing at his jokes!
His impressions were dead on!
His hair was weird – in a good way!
Damn, S. was one cool cat!
The chase, again, was on.
Luckily,
I had made it so
that I would never quite
be able to catch S. again.
You, you’re like a child
who is told not to eat before dinner
lest you spoil your appetite
but see the half-cake just sitting there
in its optimistic splendor
waiting to be despoiled
and to despoil you.
You are supposed to have a pen
beside your bed
for just such an occasion
when an idea
comes to you in the night
so you can cage it
on paper
before it flies away.
Your pens are caged elsewhere
and your thoughts fly free.
You, you are a stupid boy
who may be too old now
to learn to do the things
you were taught when young
and pliant
and capable
of enslaving a dream.
Like when you set up a competition
– but it’s internal
– and it’s weird, like you couldn’t really explain it
not in a way that would make sense to anyone else
and you start the competition
and you know nothing’s gonna happen
if you lose the competition
because you’re racing against yourself
– even if it’s not a race
– ’cause maybe it’s skipping over cracks
lest your mother’s spine be inevitably severed
or something outrageous like that.
It’s Obsessive-compulsive disorder, certainly,
but maybe not diagnosable
even if the competition you’ve agreed to
(agreed? Who agreed?
Who’s shaking hands with themselves over this crap?)
is something you cannot shake
– like shaking uncontrollably every time you pass a Shoney’s
– or ordering a dog every time you’re at Gray’s Papaya.
It’s weird though, right?
Like that.
In my defense
I thought it was someone else
as I opened my arms to embrace her
when she called my name
that spritely Spring day.
I was only offering a hug
because I thought that was the action
she would take
– the she I thought she was,
not the she she turned out to be,
you see.
In the moment, she seemed to recoil
and I recognized who she really was
and she said her name
like I didn’t know who she was
(which I guess I didn’t, until then)
and I said, “Yes of course,”
and I took her lead
and shook her hand
and her response to
“What are you doing here?”
made less sense
because she wasn’t coming
from hundreds of miles away
like I’d thought.
It’s not like I’d never hugged the she
she turned out to be before.
I don’t know why she blanched
when I approached her.
Why’d she have to make it weird?
My friends do more interesting things than me.
Lucy was a star as a kid
and so were Lydia and Dan.
Tony wrote a novel.
You know the number of people
who did a Song a Day for a year?
I can’t count ’em!
I know hikers and vegans
and hunters and plebians
and presidents and I met a couple of queens
– well they had Queen in their names –
and transfolk
and AntiFolk
and folk who see dead folk
and former Bergerfolk
(who are no relation)
and three other Jon or John Berger or Burgers.
THEY might not be more interesting than me
but that I know them is interesting,
I think.
I wanted to form a band with them.
Did I want to call us the Jons Berger
or did someone else?
We probably all wanted to be the leader.
I know I did.
Too many cooks spoil the broth…
I know cooks and I know crooks
and I know docs who have worn crocs.
They’ve got to have stories!
I know storytellers.
Even if they don’t do interesting things
they could claim they do, right?
I let a troubadour stay with me for a little while.
Does that make me interesting by proxy?
Think of his adventures on the road!
He was Australian, to boot.
I worked with a Kiwi once.
He had a mail order bride.
I knew aliens, legal and not.
I knew drug mules.
I knew people who rode mules.
I knew people who wore mules.
Me,
I get to talk about it.
Just read that you’re a she now
while I knew you as a he.
We were friends as guys
and we haven’t spoken in years
and I have no idea what I’d think of you
with such a big transition
just like I have no idea what I’d think of you
if you’d suddenly admitted
that you cared about sports
or religion
or, I don’t know, people.
It’s weird to think of such big changes
happening behind my back
but then again
why should this be about me at all?
Crap like this is probably why
we stopped talking
in the first place.
When I used to hand out flyersand put poems on the back of them
with my website
promoting my poetry
as much as the specific show
where I would do my poetry
(even though I called them "pieces"
instead of "poetry"
because "poetry"
is "fancy schmancy"
and "pieces"
is "down to earth")
I would often get comments back.
Quite often, I would hear how some girl put a poem up
on the fridge or on her mirror
for years – though I was pretty sure
I couldn’t remember seeing her ever come to a show.
Still, flattering, I guess…
The flyers didn’t seem to be effective reminders of the website
to look at the monthly tracking.
There came a time
when a guy mentioned that he found a typo
on my flyer, and he asked if I minded being shown.
"Of course not," said I,
and he handed me a red-marked sheet
where every line had something wrong with it.
Yes, there was a "teh" where a "the" should be
but there was also a "Jeebus"
that he thought was a misspelling of "Jesus"
and he didn’t seem to understand my convention
of NOT capitalizing the first letter of a line
if it is not the beginning of a sentence.
I looked up from the paper.
He looked at me, expectantly.
"Thanks," I said,
and took the sheet
and put the flyer on my fridge
forevermore.
The question really isn’t whether you’re up to the challenge
but how long it’s gonna be until you fail it.
Hank Williams said it most rightly
when he sang “I’m never getting out of this world alive”
and it’s true
– unless you’re an astronaut.
All relationships end.
All delicious meals resolve into bowel movements.
The pet you love either winds up
in a box or eating your cheek-meat.
Your favorite shirt will finally flare into embers
after an accidental trip into a microwave.
Like Springsteen suggested,
“Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact.”
It’s all over, eventually,
and we’re left to pick up the pieces
or to be picked up ourselves.
Either way, slim pickings.
So what’s it worth?
What’s the point of it all?
Why do anything
if it boils down to tears?
Perhaps another singer has an answer.
Thus spake Lennon: “Goo goo g-joob.”
She told me she had resolved
for the New Year
to build relationships
that she had let falter over time
and I walked beside her
waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I am trying
to fix the mistakes of yesteryear, you know?”
she asked, and I nodded, knowingly.
“I want to enter into this Year
correcting the errors of the past,
ensuring that old relationships
have been resolved
and maybe make sure that
there everything that needs to be said
has been.”
“Sure,” I said, switching it up.
“So what are we doing here?”
“I wondered if you had Barry’s number,”
she replied. “I’ve been trying to reach him
for a very long time now
with no response.”
Of course.
That was all she ever wanted.
Resolutions
with everyone else.
jonberger 