jonberger

We should talk.
Your momma’s worried about you.
Your sisters are worried about you.
Even your brothers are worried
– and they don’t care about nothing.

You’ve been silent too long.
So that Irish girl left;
we get it.
It’s rough.
We all cared
but what have you done?

Not a single tear shed.
You’re feeling it,
you say,
but if you don’t express it
it’s trees in a wood,
damnit.
Nothing’s happening.

We’re here for you
– all of us –
but you have to say something.

You’ve been silent too long, kid.
It’s clear you’re hurting.
You’ve gotta get in the game.

These daring days
are not what I expected
and I’m not sure
that I can keep my eyes open
for any longer
to live through them determined
when I am so used to doubt.

You don’t know what’s to come
nor do I.
I certainly can’t tell what’s gonna happen next.

I’m afraid
of what the future holds.

If you look far enough ahead
there is nothing to see
but then
isn’t that always the way?

Used to be things were simple:up and down
wrong and right
black and white
and fight all night!

But seasons pass
and time’s gone on
and in this ever-changing world in which we live in

black and white aren’t quite as clear
as they used to be
and we all need to see through
more of a touch of grey.

This truth’s been a long time coming
but it makes everything much less questionable
more obvious
leaves it all to be self-evident
that while some are more equal than others
perhaps something can be done about it.

I don’t know why civilization
is not properly planning for its fall.
It seems like a sensible thing to do
like taking the sheets off
in the guest room you’re abandoning.
You do that, right?

So why isn’t civilization preparing
For its inevitable end?

Like: in my neighborhood
they destroyed a perfectly good road
under a perfectly good bridge
to wall up some depot of some sort.
As if everything isn’t gonna be depots soon enough.

I don’t get it.
It’s all collapsing.
Anyone can see it.
Why is no one getting ready?
Why is no government putting money
into projects to see through
the Next Age of Chaos
Patent Pending?

It’s in days,
after all.
Wouldn’t it be easier
if we do a little prep work
in advance?

That was a very convincing rendition
of that song.
I’d never heard you sing it before
– I’d never heard the song before –
but I understood it
every single word
hell!
Every individual utterance.

You had me hanging on every considerable breath you took
and I wanted to know
where you were going with it
with that song you sang
that I never heard before
but I wanted to know more about.
Much more
and quickly.

Could we spend some time
perhaps
you and I
reviewing in detail
what you have to say
about that song,
please?

Some beauty is perfect
just an exercise of effortless lines and angles
making something directly
from the gods’ imagination.

Some beauty looks lovely
and needs little but to be witnessed.
Some beauty calms the soul
and challenges it
not at all.

Some beauty has character
and specifics
and must be debated
and questioned
and investigated to be understood.

Some beauty is not so simple.
Some beauty has depth
and bears further investigation
for many years to come.

You?
Yours are depths
I want to plumb.

If you think about the things
that never would have happened
had you never entered that door
the mind buckles
the brain bleeds.

You would live elsewhere
You wouldn’t work there.
The people you know
the people you love
the foods you eat
the books you read
the games you play
the ways you pay
all would be different
if you’d simply chosen not to open that door.

Some decisions are hard,
some easy
and some
you may realize
were not really decisions at all
but more like acts of fate.

Don’t make too much of this.
It’s not a big deal.
Don’t call attention to it
lest you scare it away.
This thing
that we’d best not speak of
is like a wary fawn
that it’s safest we avoid contact with
– I do not like how this sentence is going.
but there it is –
because if we face it head-on
it will dart and dash
and may never be seen again.
The fawn.
The thing we’re not talking about.
You get what I’m saying, right?

Better we not jinx
this thing we have.

Don’t call it a comeback.
Too many expectations.
Better we just enjoy
what we experience
while it’s here
than make mention of it
and risk its disappearance.

You don’t know how dangerous it might be.
Just let it be.
Just…
let us be.


It was a lame game
I got into for a bad reason
and I regret it
– not for the bad reason –
which was a good reason to regret it
– probably a better reason to regret it,
really, than the one that I do –
but because of the outcome.

Now
I have become too popular
too famous in the wrong crowds
and everyone knows my name
that I have to turn my head
every which way
for all these people
who I don’t know
(who? Whom? Whomwhich?
Whomiam? Whatever!)
and I now doubt myself in
weirder ways that I would’ve thought.

This used to be my town
in that I was comfortable in its confines
but now it is MY town
and I don’t know what is going on.
I am racing to keep up
and I don’t believe I like this.
My breath is always out.
My eyes are always twitched.
My back is always twisted
trying to keep my bald spot
out of the view
of the people behind me.

I always seem to miss a few.
They always seem to know.

I don’t know how to maintain this state.
I don’t know I want to.

I know how I got here:
that lame game fame
but it cannae live forever.
I just want it to die.

You can’t stop thinking about it, can you?
Not after all this time.
It’s been years
but still it rustles your bunyons
– or some other phrase
that makes a little bit more sense.

She was out to get you, wasn’t she?
It seemed all sickly sweet
but she was working
to push your buttons
needle all the right places
slam you right where it was necessary
to get your goat.
She was working it hard.

Still
you didn’t have to do that, did you?
Yours was an over-reaction
out of proportion to the original offense.
You went an order of magnitude beyond
even if she deserved something
of a response
at the time.

You can see that now, right?

You can see that now, right?

…right?