jonberger

Quit your job. It doesn’t deserve you.
Quit your job. They don’t treat you right.
Quit your job. Why should you spend
so many daylight hours just to make it through the night?

Quit your job and go out hunting,
looking for something that is better to do.
That’s a task that I think you’re up to.
Unless you’re afraid that’s more’n you can chew?

Quit your job. Get outta that place!
Quit your job. Find a new space!
Quit your job. It’ll be hella weak
if you’re still there complaining same time, next week.

Just quit that job. Quit it today.
“Quit that job!”‘s about all I can say
– but if you’ll allow me to add, if I may,
one more thing, it’d be “Quit that job!” OK?

Quit that job! Get the idea?
Quit that job! Get outta here!
Quit that job, cuz there’s no reason in town
for you to keep with the excuses and just stick around.

Quit that job, is the point of this piece.
Quit that job, and I’ll leave you in peace.
Even if you have to con, beg, or rob,
it’s clear that it’s time that you go quit that job.

Please try to stay with me on this
because the path is wavy
and the logic tenuous
at best:

I recited a poem the other day
about losing a hundred dollars
and a day later
wrote a poem about willing thought
into action.
I do not believe about willing thought
into action
and the poem
is about the power
of negative thinking.

The day after
I lost hundreds of dollars
but also got really good news
that was maybe because
I had done good work
and had done the right thing
and had earned something
so maybe I had put thought to action
and good had come of it.

So I’m wondering now
between these pieces
if maybe the power has been in me
all along
and that perhaps
I am a witch.

I’m sorry.
I did that wrong.

I am a witch
and I can make things happen.

I can encant
and it shall be so.
My words have become truth
and it is so
because
my words have become truth.
you get me?

So, with this realization
and this power uncovered
discovered
recovered
(whatever)
let me start with this:
I want my money back.

…anything?
Maybe later.

I explained to my therapist how
I’d been waiting for some news
and I just assumed the worst;
presuming whatever negative prognosises
I could imagine
with all the creativity my humble brain could muster.

“You tend to do that,”
my therapist said,
“Just self-deprecate
and project doom
when you could as easily
put forth an optimistic front.”

“Yes,” I agreed.
“That is,
indeed,
something that I tend to do.”

He waited.
I waited.
We both waited
in silence
for some time
for what it seemed
was the eventuality
we had both expected.

Eventually
my therapist broke.
“Don’t you
have anything to say
about that very behavior of yours?
Any commentary
or ways
in which you’d choose to describe it?”

“I have a tendency
to skew to the cynical side,”
I admitted.

“Well,” my therapist smiled,
“perhaps you’re improving.”
And he looked nervous.

fearing I would snarl at the fact
that I might have been anything less
that perfect previously
(I have struck fear
in the heart
of many a concerned care worker).

This time
I took no bait.

The session ended
with equanimity undiminished
until I realized
far too late
that I had never written My Therapist #10.
What am I:
a fucking idiot?
When am I going to get anything right?

Yes, I stole your seat.
Yes, I knew better.
Yes, I’m old enough
and responsible enough
and mature enough
to have avoided this embarrassing faux pas.
This is not the man
my mother raised.
This is not the person
I hoped to be.

I am sorry for my action.
It was wrong.
It was not the worst thing I have done today
– not even this evening –
but it is the most recent
and if it is the one
upon which I must be judged,
officer, then, please,
take the seat back,
with my blessing,
and my apologies,
and… will fifty cents make up the difference?

So maybe you’re not the fuckup we thought you were.
Maybe you’ve got more on the ball
than all previous evidence suggested.
Possibly you’re capable
of success on a level we hadn’t imagined:
any.

It seems like some congratulations
might be in order
and you could be deserving
of some sort of a toast.
Unless there’s a way
that your accomplishments today
and this week
and this month
and… really?
It’s been six weeks now?
Wow!
Well, is there any way
that this run of achievements of yours
could they still be in jealousy?
Is there any way that you could still mess it up?

All right then!
To you,
and all you’ve done
and all you will continue to –
and there it is.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
And you, apparently,
are the inverse.
If there is something that can go wrong
it can be found
by you.

Well done, that.

Any minute now, it’ll happen:
fate. Destiny.
The axe falling.
The boot dropping
heel first upon the neck
of its neck victim
any minute now.

The waiting is the part
that hangs on
interminably
as each minute
becomes a moment
and each moment
lasts an eon indefinite
as instants stretch on.

The answers are coming.
They’ll blow on by
at any time
– any minute now –
as thoughts repeat
and echo
and everything circles
and it’s gonna happen soon
but not now.
Not yet.
Not
soon
enough.

You knew it would go wrong.
You said it would
through so many different sentences
and periods of incrimination
over too many false starts
and false promises under faux finishes
in flashy forward thinking front rooms
where optimism ought to have been
the order of the day..

You knew it would fail at the start.
Didn’t you state it a thousand ways?
Claim it at the start of infinite days?
Use it as a torch through go a mourning haze?
Your palpable pessimism
and natural negativity
would always and all-encompassingly encourage
everything and everyone to imagine the worst
for only that could set you free
from your anxiety.

But it didn’t.
It let your worries rule you
and others followed suit
and we realized what you knew all along
that failure was in the cards
the stars
and far and away
the only path ahead
would be led to
hither and yon
by a bad guide
to a bad place.
It was all bad.
You predicted it
and it was made so.

You knew it wasn’t going to work.
You said it often enough,
sighed and cried
and your will
was enough to make it work.
Congratulations.

It was a thin line you were walking
and you were sure to trip.
Isn’t it a relief, then,
that it was sooner
and not later?
Are you not glad
that the tension
is off your shoulders,
your calves?

Balance
is no longer your concern
the careful needs of so many different masters
having to be catered to
all at once:
speed and pace
and form and finesse
all at the same instant

for so many consistent instants.
Are you not pleased
to be freed
from all of these?

Isn’t it good
to be able to rest
st last
after all this time
and all that work
to just finally
be done?

Answer later
if you ever wake.

It is safer to be silent
to sit in the darkness
and await results
than to stride proudly
the cock of the walk
and leave yourself ready
for all the attacks
of all the men and women
playing on the fields of discontented conquest.

It is wiser
to keep your counsel
and to offer nothing to nobody
including the first fraught fringe
of a feeling to family
lest it be used to haunt you
later in life
sent as a time mine from the past
to destroy a certain peace of mind
previously contained
in your memories.

Speak naught of the things you hold dear.
Share only the frivolous
and provide that information
only sparingly
for that, too,
can prove dangerous
in the wrong hands.
It is, in fact,
the most decorous course of action
to sew lips soon after birth
and never be cursed by community again.

Nobody died.
The house is in one piece.
All the bones are in place
and the soul is indescribable
so who can say
what shape it’s in, anyhow?

Change is destined
and expected
and we all knew the good old days
weren’t all so good.
Tomorrow will have lowlights
but maybe there’s a high or two
to foresee?

Or maybe I’m already high
drunk off the potential
of a future I’m too blind to see straight.
I can’t speak clearly, I’m so dumb.
But at least nobody’s dead
yet.