jonberger

This is important
and I should’ve said this before
like before the yelling
and the throwing
and the tearing and my cries
but when I’m telling you
that you’ve got to make changes in your life
that frankly everything you’re doing
is wrong
I’m saying this
because there’s potential there
there’s something that you’re doing right and I wish there was more of it.

I believe in you
is what I’m saying
and it is really
what I should lead with
not all of the other shit
about corrections
and edits and revisions
– definitely not revisions.

I’m sorry and I’ll try and fix it
going forward.
That’s my revision.
My own personal constructive criticism
which, frankly,
you could have given before now, huh?

I’ll stop.

It was terribly irresponsible
of you
to fall for me
and tell me you liked
me without first doing due diligence
and realizing that I’m kind of paranoid
and overweight and balding
and a little bit batshit fucking crazy.

I really don’t see how you couldn’t have recognized
at least some of that.
The warning signs were all there.
Have you heard me talk?
Read the news reports?

I’m sorry you feel betrayed.
I feel betrayed too.
I thought we had something.
I thought I’d finally found a partner in time
to save me from my own worst impulses
who could ostracize the inappropriate spirits in my psyche
– but no.
We’re both on our own
because apparently
you bit off more than you could chew.

You should have read the label, Buddy:
I was already broken
in the box.

Deals are made after midnight.
Deals are made on street corners.
Deals are completed under tables
in dank back booths
while big-haired tight-skirted waitresses
look the other way.

Deals happen over handshakes.
Deals happen over milkshakes.
Deals happen over Shake Weights
and at Shake Shacks
and fishing shacks
and snack shacks and Dairy Queens
and also in Brooklyn.
Deals happen in all five boroughs
and over in Jersey, as well.

Deals gets developed in cars, in bars,
while golfing on par,
or fishing for char,
or, or, maybe sometimes at Mar-a-Lago, I guess?
Dunno.
A stopped clock is right twice a day.

Deals happen all the time.
Some good.
Lots bad.
Some’re bargains.
Some’re crap.
A few are so easy
but most simply sap all your energy to sign
on the line every time
it’s a crime to design
the right script on
deadline? Ugh!
It’s a mess.

Deals happen every day.
Make sure
youi’re on the right side
of yours.

It can’t have been easy.
Her life had been entirely over there
from start to finish
but that was finished
and she was starting over again
over here
with nothing
and no one helping.

I forget that sometimes
when I think only of the results:
the spare gestures
the frugality of affection
the quick words
and sometimes careless ways with others.
It’s like she didn’t know our ways here
because she didn’t.
She was new to our world.

It doesn’t forgive everything.
Nothing could.
But it is good to remember.
The context makes it easier
to understand what makes her that way
which could make all our future interactions far more tolerable – where’s everyone going?

At the open mic
in front of the strangers
he played the song
that he wrote just for her.

They all rooted for him
as she,
young gamine, starry-souled
looked on, heart fully open
and ready to take in
whatever he had to offer.
The entire crowd wanted their love to win
until they heard him sing
and heard his song
and slowly
they’re support turned
into something
else.

He said he had wanted to impress her
and he did
but he also impressed the audience
with his inability with a rhyme and rhythm
and sense of time
and the wastage thereof of all the attendants’ contributions in that regard.

But isn’t that the way of the open mic?
Isn’t that the way of the performer?
Isn’t that the way of new love?
Yes. The answers to all those was “yes.”

No, you’re probably right.
I’m getting it wrong
misunderstanding the sequence.
I’m not familiar with all these terms.
It’s been a while, y’see.

It’s not love.
It must be something else that I’m feeling. Something simple or really primitive.
Naïve.
I wouldn’t understand love
not yet
not with you
I guess.

You’ve got a good point.
I just haven’t recognized it yet.
I can’t see so clearly
in this dim light.
If you turn the flames a little higher
perhaps I’ll understand
as well as you.

For now, though,
I’ll take your word
as surely you can tell the truth
as you have defined everything else so far.
It’s not love, is it?
And it never was.

They are bored of me speaking about you.
I am bored of me speaking about you.
You is by far not my favorite vowel
– there is one I am so much more used
to luxuriating on
and my friends,
who used to complain about me always going on
about the subject of me,
it seems would prefer
I return to the vowel of I.
But I continue to light
over and over again
only on you.

I simply do not find myself
as interesting anymore.

Perhaps that will change
as I get to know you better.
It has happened before
when the flight of fancy becomes too familiar,
I grow bored
and become more fascinated with myself
as per the norm
but right now
all my focus seems to be
on your hand gestures
the way you enter a room
your mismatched socks
and your occasional warble.

I could go on indefinitely
regarding your delights
and do.
They wish I would change the subject
which frankly
is irrelevant.
All that matters
is what do you think?

I’m sorry; you’re not doing it right.
You’re just not street enough
not dark enough
nor urban
or dangerous or hip enough.

You’re just not what we’re looking for.
You’re not what anyone’s looking for.
You’re not the sort of thing
that makes any sense
that defies any realistic expectation
of what should exist
and we cannot in good conscience
invest any further in your continuance.

It’s simple enough:
you don’t fit.
You’re beyond compare
in that there’s nothing to compare you to.
You’re unique
in that no one else
does anything near what you attempt.
Your actions are unprecedented
because no one else considered ever trying
anything akin to them.
You know about Recommended If You Like something?
We can’t do that with you;
you’re unlike everything else.

You’re uncategorically uncategorizeable
and there’s no hole
for a peg of your sort.
Come back
if you’re ever willing to change.

The people I am trying to know
sense my ulterior motives
even when I do not.
They know, somehow,
that I only want them
for their beauty or wealth,
their strength of arms or skill with a stick.
They can tell all my mischievous purposes
in seeking to meet them
even when I believe that I simply seek to them out
for they themselves.

There is always a catch
always some special thing that I want
from each and every one
a particular part that attracts me
that makes me want to bring them into my web
and make them one of my creatures
so I can be attached
to something of worth.

And these worthy people
being worthy
see me for what I am:
a hanger-on
a succubus
a leech of the least degree
and they realize eventually
that they should treat me as such

apparently.

The cars currently on the street
are parked based on the spaces available
left by the previous attendants
much like trees move toward the source of light
to grow and twist for best effect.
We all are formed
from the scars left before us.

We can only move
where our wounds
or interests
or enemies
ever allow us to.