jonberger

All these years on this green earth not been worth my time.
My days spent on hard rock, loose women, cheap drugs and fine wine.
I’ve feel I’ve been lost for forty days. Don’t think I’ll find my way back.
Jesus, take the wheel. Go chauffeur my Cadillac.

Partied past the night, well into the dawn.
At some point I wondered, how much more I could go on.
Stumbled home, unwell, unclear, unsure I could take anymore.
Lift me up, Moses, I’m heading to the seventh floor.

It’s days like this I pray if I could just one day divine
an inkling of an instant of celestial design.
In my existential existence, little’s turned out fine.
Help me, Mary. I need the whole place clean by nine.

The world around is dissolute; pleasures everywhere.
Indulgences can just exhaust. How can one even care?
I need someone to guide me back, wherever I may roam.
Thank someone I have you. Jesus. Come on, take me home.

They look at me
and all can see inside immediately.
Wherever I go
I am known
I am obvious
I am apparent
as if my brain
and it’s inner workings
are seen and understood
with ease.

I did not realize how simple I must seem
until now
which is further evidence
of how simple I must seem,
I suppose.
Everyone could predict my moves
by the clockwork design
and the shifts and clicks
of gears going on at all hours.
It is eerie how easy it is
to infer any of my attempted intellections,
infrequently as they apparently occur.

I thought I could disguise myself.
I thought my thoughts were my own
but instead, it seems,
I am constantly known,
which is pretty embarrassing
– but you already knew that, right?

The quest so far has been long
arduous, difficult.
You have struggled.
You have striven.
You have stretched and ached to get here
to achieve these heights.

So, hold:
Review your position.

Above you, glorious heaven
and a sky full of promise.
Below you?
A chasm deep, dark
going down
you don’t know how far
because of the dark I mentioned just before.

You know which way you’re going.
You’re not going back from whence you came
and you can’t afford to fall
down that particularly precipitous drop.

You’ll keep going, of course,
eventually.
You just need a break.

You’ll just have to stay here
to get your bearings
until you feel a little less
unearthed
and
ready
to move on.

That’s what adventurers do.
They set up camp
and someday continue
up through hazardous conditions
and face all the dangers ahead.

Someday soon.

It’s always great to see you
but it’s greater when you go.
I’ll miss you, absolutely.
I’ll be a wreck,
but there’s no question
it’s better when you’re gone.

I breathe easier.
I think more clearly.
I can elucidate on a wider range of subjects
(that is to say,
things that are not you).

Obviously I want nothing less
than for you to be not around
just like I would be miserable
if chocolate cake
was eradicated from the planet
but when you’re diabetic
you gotta make some hard choices
and I guess I’m Type One for you.

I’m not capable
in any of the ways I want to be
in your presence.
I’m not smart.
I’m not aware of my environment.
I’m too anxious of your emotions
and reactions
and imagined responses.
I’m not funny
or put together or anything.
I’m a mess.

I can’t ever ask for your absence,
since I could never dream of living with that
so the conundrum is one
I cannot resolve
unless you leave me alone
for a good long while
so
you can see the problem.

The Frenchman says
“You will never be able to undo
what has happened here today.
“History is immutable.
“What happened will always have been
and will never be able to change.

“You are a slave to the events
you initiated,” the Frenchman continues,
“And everything afterwards
will simply systematically serve the sequence started when you did the deed.

“You don’t have to deny it,” the Frenchman says, “I know it to be true. “Whatever you regret,
however you feel
about every last aspect of the atrocities,
you know and I know what occurred.
You know and I know you are responsible.
You know and I know you are to blame
and you know and I know
what no one else will ever hear.”

And the Frenchman disappears
and I hope I can keep the secret
and live in peace
free of the guilt
since I don’t know the Frenchman
or have any idea
what he was talking about.

Maybe he was Belgian.

I rode past far too quickly
to get the full effect
but you were stunning
in the literal way
so that I forgot momentarily
where I was going
and failed to make my turn
and had to spin around
which made the cab driver behind me really mad
or so his horn playing led me to believe.

Where I was going
turned out to be where you were going
at least for a short while
so once I got my bearings
I found myself
in temporary pursuit of you
which meant I got to see you from behind
which was
really pretty pleasant, I guess.

You must know that you’re beautiful.
Not model beautiful.
If someone told you that
they were probably blowing smoke up your butt
which, like I said,
was pretty great
– but great for humans
real people
not those fake things they elevate above us.
You are the best in breed,
I’d say,
not a breed apart.
This is looking like a whole lot of letters
which is really costing me a bunch by now
I’ll bet
but first draft best draft
right
ha ha anyway…

I passed you by
and got to glance at your face again
which was really the coup de grace
which I’m sure I’ll learn how to pronounce someday
and I realized that you deserved to know that the vision of you
was enough to change the path of my day
if only for a moment
but your boyfriend or whoever that was
was really big
and I didn’t want to get a face full of fist
so I just sped on
like the gamma guy that I are.

But you deserved better.
You deserved to know who you were
to me today.
I hope you read this.

Oh, hey. Fancy seeing you here.
With him.
I guess you’ve moved on, then, huh.
It didn’t take you but a minute
to find someone
to fill whatever hole was left
from my absence, did it?
I’m so glad Brad was there to help you out.
He seems
pretty capable.
What can he bench press:
like, everything?
Guess you didn’t need
some other bitter artist to keep you down this time
when you’ve got a piece like Brad.

I can just see it:
the two of you
arm in arm
walking down the boulevard
all capped teeth
and coiffed hair
everything just so.
You’ll be quite a pair.
So lovely.
So elegant.
So carefully precise.
You fucking deserve each other.

Your kids, I can imagine,
would be shoo-ins
for all the elite institutions.
Perfect specimens for the new regime.
They’ll have everything laid out for them
and that’s all you ever really wanted
isn’t it?
Jesus. I should have known
you’d never want a life of effort
of struggle
of existential dread.
How wonderful for you
and flyover family.

It’s so fucking cliche
to see you two
so picture perfect
but I think the worst is
I don’t think I ever saw the euphoria in your eyes
today when you’re with him
than any time you looked at me
not even at the beginning.

Obviously, there is a real connection for you
not the shallowness of your perfect bodies
intersecting in all the right ubermenschian ways.
Maybe you were meant, dammit.
Maybe you were destined.
So choke on your fucking happiness, Stacy.
May you be in joy and cocksucking pleasure together
for fucking forever.

He died April thirtieth
after maybe the most human days
on the earth.
Mbah Gotho
was born before they kept records
of every birth
in Indonesia
so his claim of coming up
at the end of 1870
has not been supported
by any authorities
who matter
like that Guinness Book.

It should be said
that Indonesian authorities believed his claim
and issued IDs to back him up
but his 146th birthday
was not published by Big Book
so really
what does it matter?

But whatever his number of days
he convinced enough people
of his age
and crotchety state
which might have been the real victory
all along.

Please don’t do that here.
This is not the place
nor the time
for that kind of behavior.
Yes, it’s out of the box
and it’s exciting
and it’s really hot what you’re doing to me right now
right there
…oh, right there…
but
somebody might see.
Somebody might say something.
Somehow, some way,
this could get onto the Internet.

We must remain pure and chaste
until the time proves right
and that time
is nowhere near today,
no matter how compelling
those actions may prove.

Christ, you look stunning.
Whatever it is you’ve been up to,
these last two years
have served you well.

Please
do what you can
to keep it in my pants.
Please.