jonberger

I am dying
but I will make it through this night
unlike the boy
who crossed the Hustlers
and left a chalk outline outside our door
so Emily insists on dragging me from my sickbed
out into a cab
and off to an SRO across town called,
if my fevered head can be believed,
The Decadent.

The cab and the overnight cost
about as much as what Emily has on hand
but she believes I am worth it
and nothing I have done yet
has convinced her otherwise.
She puts me to scratchy bed
and I soon dream of crawling things
and creatures come to punish me
while Emily meets out neighbors:
addicts and illegals all
who need a break
and are steps away
from being broken.

I feel my soul being judged here
at The Decadent
and Emily wonders
if there’s anything that can be taken from her
but these are good people
who live in desperate times,
surely, but will do nothing
to their fellow desperadoes.
We are safe here she finds
and I will make it through the night.

I don’t know
how many more are left in me, though,
and I hope Emily realizes this soon,
and finds a better place to be.

Everyone’s trying to remind me
about the special occasion
– just alarm after alarm
on my all my devices
beeping minute after moment
with signifiers displayed on every banner I can see.
I don’t know why
the world is making it my business
about what it is they want to remember.

What if I don’t care?
What if I am not involved?
What if I don’t know anyone
or don’t want to learn anything
or just have better things to do?
Your cause needn’t be mine,
you know?

I might be an island.
I might be done with all of it.
I might be ready to call it quits
with what you call civilization
and not give a snot
about who wore it worst
or the last season of the Bang
or whose birthday it is this week
and not want to sign anybody’s card or anything

– and my phone just beeped in the middle
of writing this
to remind me again
about Em’s birthday
so there you go.
Happy birthday, Em.

I gotta say, kiddo,
I don’t get it.
You guys were so close.
Back in the days,
it was like you would never do anything apart
but now I see her coming over
and you don’t ever look her way anymore.

What happened with you two?
What division sundered
what was once so close?

She asks after you.
She doesn’t say what happened
doesn’t admit that anything did
but these old eyes can see some things.
You don’t have to tell me
what happened between you.
That’s your story to tell,
obviously,
yours and hers
but she wants to know you still,
this old nose knows that.

She left these for you.
She said she made them
from scratch.
Home made – she substituted with butterscotch chips –
like you like.
Cookies are forgiving, she said.

Cookies, huh?
They’re soft.
Chew on those for a while.

Four out of five.
Eighty percent.
That’s as much as you have offered
in the statistically measured recent past.
It’s not bad.
It’s passing.
You’ve made some effort,
I’ll allow that.

You’ve tried.
You’ve done something.
You’ve put in some hours
some elbow grease
some toil on your brow
to effect some sort of change.
You’ve been trying,
that much is true.

80% is what you have given.
80% is what you provide.
80% is the kind of worker you are
the kind of person you are.
The kind of person you are.

The kind of person you are
is eighty percent.
Four fifths of a human being:
that is what you have proven yourself to be.
Maybe
that is all you will ever be.

Decide.

I never listened to what you had to say
because you always said too much.
There was just such noise around you
and I couldn’t really hear anything.
I never listened to what you had to say
because you were so regularly whiney.

I never listened to what you had to say
because of the speed with which you spoke.
It always took so damned long
for you to get to the end of every prolonged extended sentence. Every fucking time.
Damn.
God. Damn. It.

I never listened to what you had to say
because you said a lot of ridiculous shit.
I mean
whenever I did stop to think about
what you were trying to say,
when I got around
to actually decoding
your attempts at communication
I would consistently find myself consequently muttering,
“Welp,
that’s yet another seventeen minutes
I will never regain.”
The only times I didn’t say that
was when the times were greater:
twenty eight minutes
or forty three minutes
or during one splintered conversation,
two and a half freaking hours.
I never listened to what you had to say
because of all the previous disappointments.

I never listened to what you had to say.
I have never listened to what you had to say
before.
I never listened to what you had to say,
which was admittedly disrespectful,
but I think I have proven,
was somewhat substantiated.
I never listened to what you had to say
but if you want to give it another shot,
I’m listening.

Don’t fuck this up.

I hadn’t realized before
about your teeth.
I guess I hadn’t checked them
so closely before,
noticed their imperfections,
seen the work that was needed
– and why would I?
What situation
would have allowed me to separate your lips
and poke around in there,
some judge assessing potential prize pigs?

But now fate
or time or opportunity
had allowed me a glance at those pearly yellows
and I am
surprised
in a pleasant way
how far inferior they are
to the rest of you.

I suppose I hadn’t realized
that your teeth were quite that messed up before.
I mean, you’re still a vision,
even when you smile,
but when you’re talking
or enthusiastic you seem somehow
now more human
and I find it
even more special
that you have this thing
approaching a flaw
and I can see you
as one who lights down here
closer to the rest of us.

It is great to find
that you gnaw on some of the same lowly issues
as the rest of us.
Something to consider:
food for thought.

I think you’ve mistaken me
for someone else.
Someone handsomer.
Someone better.
I think you’ve confused me with someone else that you know
that you like
someone that you have a deeper relationship with.
Someone that’s not me.

I don’t have deeper relationships.
I don’t think I have relationships
anymore.
I don’t think there’s much chance I’m the person you think I am
even if there’s the slightest chance
that I once was.

I’m sorry for the confusion
and I’m sorry if I’ve wasted your time
by being here
in front of you now
and not being who you expected
or what you expected
or being much of anything,
really, at all.
I’m sorry
that it’s not me
you’re looking for.

I’m pretty sure I’m not
who you wanted to see tonight
after all.

This is transient, remember.
It’s gonna go away
like it always does
every single time
you feel this way.
The sharp hurt,
the dull ache
it all disappears eventually
dispersed into disarray.

You may even see value
in taking pleasure in this pain
as it won’t be with you for very long.
It may well be missed
before you know it.

Don’t worry, though.
It’ll be back again
soon after.

It is a chronic condition you have
with these particular emotions.
It comes and goes
but it always returns
and always goes away again afterwards.

I heard he’s gone
after seeing him so recently
after not seeing him for quite so long.
He came and went like sheet in a gust
resting as needed,
gone as he must.

I lack all the details
and wish I had more
and until I learn aught, it’s all stored up as lore
and the legends will grow how he fell from great heights
or was felled by wolf bites
or got lost in kick fights

but the facts are the facts
in the world that we know
where we share all our souls
with new names at new shows
and the facts are the facts
and the world that we share
is one where we put out
but parts that we care to.

So what can I know
about the man I called Beau?
I hear that he’s gone.
Is that truly so?
I saw him so rarely;
if I see him never,
would that be so different
had his life not been severed?

I’m really not sure
since I thought of him rarely.
His presence was pleasant,
generosity fairly
consistent; I’m sure there are others for whom
a chill will be felt by his loss from the room.

For me? I’m glad to have known him
a bit.
And wish in his absence, I get more than a whit
of a chance to learn more
of who he had been
before I had known him
and after his begin.

This day.
This experience.
Those animal crackers
and how they have caused us
to be kicked out of bed
in such an innovating
and surprising way.
Wow.

Every time I think you couldn’t possibly disappoint me any more I realize yet again
how I’ve never really put enough faith in you
or your possible accomplishments.
You contain multitudes
and everything I assume
is the end-slash-be all of what you can achieve
is nothing compared to what you finally do.

You are amazing.
I mean that
truly
and I hate you.
I mean that
deeply.
You ruin everything
except theoretical concepts
because their wealth
can never be fully depleted
and so your infinite capacity
to bring me down
never ceases to shock.

Congratulations.
You’ve done it again.