jonberger

Look around you:
the lights are low.
All sounds are dim.
You am listening to the house settle
slowly into snores.
You wait for everyone else to sleep.
Soon you’ll be the last one sitting
on guard in the homestead.

Soon
the only one awake
will be you.

Then, you can work the perimeter,
if you wish.
You can choose the channel
you could raid the freezer.
You lay in whatever position
in the living room
on all the cushions.
This freedom
is unimaginable

and it is yours every evening
that you can withstand the call of night
longer than everyone else
with enough fortitude to get up and…
just get up…
you can do it…

Maybe tomorrow then.
There’s always tomorrow…

I do not hunt
except for bargains
or spelling errors
to correct commenters
thus proving my argument is stronger than anyone else’s
in any of WarnerVerse community boards
I happen to be a part of.

I do not hunt
but for failings in my characters
for the purposes of self-flagellation
so that I may feel freer
in the process of others-flagellation,
an avocation that occupies many an hour,
if I were hunting for honesty, here.
I am not
– because I do not hunt.

I do not hunt
because we are past that.
I do not hunt
because it seems cruel.
I do not hunt
because I don’t like tomatoes.
I do not hunt
though I don’t use all fingers on a keyboard
and for years have lived in Hunts Point.

Despite all these things
(and because of some others)
I just don’t see the point in hunting
but I will keep looking.

Looking back on some old poems
about you.

I really
really really really
really really really really really really really
really hated you at the end.
I hated you more than I hated the next three,
maybe together
– assuming there’s an effective technical way
to collect the hate
and tally it appropriately
which I think would be an amazing study
if done correctly.

I suspect the hate came from the helplessness I felt
because of how desperately I craved you
and knew it wasn’t reciprocated
to the degree I needed it to be.
I knew there was nothing I could do.

And, of course,
it all proved true.
A self-fulfilling prophecy, perhaps,
but destiny is destiny
and we were through
while my hate burnt blue.

The poetry reads bitter now,
acrid.
I hate the animosity in every line
but I wish I could I could generate
that sort of energy on command
were I able to tabulate it
in the theoretical study referred to
above.

Anyhoo,
thinking of you.
Yours,

This one has a ghost in it
and a leopard
and a couple of skeet shooters
competing for the championship of the universe
– but ironically, in pocket pool.

This one includes two dance numbers
a race sequence
four fight scenes
two independent bursts of song
and a dream sequence in black and white
that subsequently explodes into kaleidoscope.

This one’s got romance and humor and bourgeois rap
and a megagasmic budget
with a cast of thousands
and a special effect or eight.
It’s coming to a theater near you
this Christmas
and it’s precisely as good
as you think it is.

Ask for it by name
or its sequel.

It was pretty touch and go
for a while, there.
There was a month
I was fairly close to dead,
figuratively.
I was getting out of bed
getting out of the house
but with nowhere to go
no reason to be.

I was a ghost
haunting my own life.
It felt pointless.

It wasn’t even wretched.
It didn’t reach that level of dysfunction.
It was some kind of toxic emasculinity,
I was just wandering through.

I was chameleon-close to the rest of you,
but was something else there,
as I struggled with my zombie-existence.
It was rough.

I wish I could have said something
while the spell was cast.
Maybe I could have gotten some help.
Maybe you could have helped me break it.
But probably it always had to be
something I did on my own.

Outside my window
the single tree on my block
is barely a tree.
A reversed truck has left roots exposed
and now the tree
can be seen struggling to connect
with the earth beneath our feet.

The city’s been told
and, in its infinite bureaucracy,
has done aught to rectify anything.
Days have passed
and the tree, she remains untethered
barely balanced above the dirt
always at risk of falling onto the street
into incoming traffic.

Sometimes I watch
from my window.

I did not see
when someone came with a two by four
to silently prop
the only tree on the street
up from the street
so she would not fall prematurely.
Dead wood was used
to maintain the longevity
of the living thing still left on my block.

I haven’t thanked the soft savior
but I’m glad for her actions
and so, I’m certain,
is that tree.

For Halloween, I dressed as me:
fearful me
shame-ridden me.
Infinitesimal, irrelevant
and irksome me.

I dressed as myself
in all my grotesque finery
and paraded down avenues
doing my best impression of the character.
I was very convincing;
talking with all the proper scowls
and taking on all the usual ticks.

And no one could tell me from the real thing.
Absolutely everybody down every single street
genuinely believed
that I was really me
and accorded me all the respect
I usually receive.
It was…
quite convincing.

Halloween was enlightening:
to dress in that skin for the night
and see how I really live,
what it was like to truly be me
for a while.
It was good.
I enjoyed the visit into myself
but when it was time to go home,
I disrobed
took off the costume
and decided that finally
after this experiment,
it was time to become something else.

You look like someone
once familiar.
Perhaps you were once Raped Girl
with a haunted look in your eye
and sense of prey about you
every day?

Were you Nervous Girl
with a hand on your hair
constantly twirling
laughing at too many little things
too many times
and kinetically connecting with all corners of the room
all at once?

Maybe you were Gone Girl
who leaves in a jumping jack flash
every time things get serious
or Generous Girl
buying drinks when times are tight.
You never bought me a pony, though,
did you…
But that wasn’t you, was it?
Moving on.

Could you have been Goth Girl?
Girly Girl?
God Girl?
Moody Girl?
Riot Grrl?
Smart Girl?
Smartass Girl?
Smarmy Girl?
No, no, no
and no some more?
Urgh.

Are there any categories you could possibly fit into
that I haven’t identified yet?
Where have I seen your sort before
or is it possible
that I have never in my life
experienced anyone before

like you?

When you asked me to buy that ice cream cone
I didn’t know.

I didn’t understand the significance of any of it
not the truck
not the flavor
not the timing.

I didn’t realize what you really wanted
or what I really wanted
or what ice cream meant to you
or the kids
and what it would spell out down the line.
But then,
I’m not sure any of us did.

If I had understood better,
I may have done exactly the same things
but at least
wouldn’t have been so damned torn up about it.

Anyway,
I’m glad Joey’s not as allergic to pecans as you thought
and I really hope
you let me see him
when I get out.
If I get out.

Yes, ma’am.
I suppose it was impertinent of me
to think you might still
be paying attention to my comings
and goings-on all these years later.
I guess I had assumed it was mutual
but clearly you’ve moved on.

No, ma’am.
Clearly, you have better things to do
than follow up
on any message
some old acquaintance you’d forgot,
ten years out of mind,
might send you.

Of course, ma’am.
It was really rude to come here
in the middle of the night
to deliver this note
– this brick with a note attached –
and imagine I would get any reaction
different from this.

Yes, officer.
I think my apology is close to complete.

Thank you, ma’am,
for dropping most of the charges,
and reminding me that not all Kirstens
are created equal.

What?
All this time,
and your name was Christine?

Well, then.
Thank you
very much
for your time tonight,
ma’am.