jonberger

You’re gonna talk to me some day.
That sullen look on your face
is gonna grow stale
and you’re gonna get sick
of the same old same old
that you find from the same old miserable company
you have tended to keep.

You’re gonna look me up again
and you’re gonna want a piece of my time.

You may be arrogant about it
but in the back of your mind
you’ll know that you’d allowed our friendship to lie fallow
and so ever so slightly
you will come to me penitent.

You will be humble
in your way.
You will hesitate

but I will take you back
and welcome you
and speak to you lovingly
and ask you questions
as I always have
and bring you back into the fold
and we shall chat amiably
about the old subjects
until you remember again
how much cooler it is
to be distant
and aloof
and rude
and perhaps even silent again
and then everything will go back to normal:
Homeostasis.

Oh! Disagree?
Well, then, by all means…
prove me wrong.

I stayed in shadows
not because I didn’t want to be seen
but because I was afraid.
If I was seen
would I be recognized?
If I was recognized
would anyone remember my name?
What identity would be recalled?
Which ridiculous version of myself
would be pulled out of their memories
and would it be someone they wanted to see?
Would it be someone they liked?

It was better to remain hidden.

So I kept to the back.
I remained aloof
separate.
I maintained a separate peace.
It was easier.
It seemed elegant.
I felt safer
clinging to the darkness
where no one needed to see me
one way or another

until the lights came on
and my cousins called me a vampire
for the rest of the party.

I was just preaching
the gospel of empiricism
for the umpteenth time.
If I remember correctly
the latest draft
of my typical routine
it went something like:

Yea, verily the believers,
the suckers born each minute
who have faith in something beyond themselves,
those who suspect there is a Force
or a God
of a Buddha or Whatever the Fuck,
those gullible freaks,
with their susceptible minds
and tricked out mouth-breather acceptance of an afterlife,
the religious,
the passionate,
the engaged,
they are certainly a special people.

I look at them agog
for they are happy in their lives of simplicity
as they strongly insist on a purpose
a higher power
a sense of destiny.
The faithful believe
and I pity them
for I know better
and I wish I didn’t.
I wish I could walk amongst them
but alas
I am too clever by half
too knowledgeable of the ways of the world
too smart to be anything but miserable.

Thus endeth the lesson
but maybe opens the opportunity for some learning.
If there is somehow a way
that I could be taught
simplicity
I wish it to be so.

The benches hold plaques,
mini-memorials, describing notable entities
of the community
in so many words:
Diana
Mother, writer, friend.
She will be remembered.

How will I be described
I wonder
if anyone ever
has the urge
to invest in my plaque?

Jonathan Berger
he talked loud
said nothing.

Jon Berger
He paid me
to say this.

Jonathan David Berger
His middle name was David
and nobody cared.

I don’t know
if I really want to be remembered
on a park bench.
I do know
that I am very afraid
how I will be remembered.

Down by the river
I saw my baby
I saw my baby
with another man.
They were walking
and they were talking
and she was laughing
like only she can.

I saw my baby.
She was so happy
as she and jerk boy
walked down the bank.
I was so jealous.
I was so angry.
And alla sudden,
they upped and sank!

And I did nothing!
No, I saw nothing!
I was nowhere near the scene.
I am a good boy.
I didn’t see nothin’.
I have no idea what you mean.

I was in Oakland.
I was the driver
and in my pocket
I had the box
but it wasn’t my car
or my jacket.
I had no license
– I wasn’t even wearing my socks!

The car was borrowed.
What was I doing?
My reputation you shan’t besmirch!
Just what are you
accusing me of carrying, officer?
Oh, please, not the cavity search!

I have done nothing!
I didn’t do nothing.
I was inconveniently on the scene.
I have no clue whatsoever
what you’re talkin’ about, man.
I have no idea what you mean.

OK, I see the situation,
it looks bad for me.
But get this: I’m the good guy here.
As far as I can tell
it boils down to one salient fact:
I just can’t handle my beer.

This is all undeserved
because I was overserved,
and that’s the last thing on the subject that I’ll say.
All right, maybe I’ll be coerced
to make more of a statement.
after the body parts are hauled away

but I did nothing.
I have done nothing.
I am guilty of no crime.
If I had to shout
every thing I have done wrong
I would be a perfect little mime.

But I’ll repeat it:
I have done nothing.
Nothing else makes any sense.
I will shout it out to any judge who listens:
I have nothing to declare
but innocence.

The more I think about
these swirling thoughts
with this particular medication
racing through my system,
the less I believe
that this is the universe
I wish to reside in anymore.

I want out.
I hope for a home
with better rules
and kinder operators.
This is not the place for me.
It’s just not working out
and I need a change of address.

Get me out of here
to a gentler reality
where physics is softer
and the emotional spectrum
is somewhat more balanced.
Give me a narrow series of predators
who will only nibble
at my sole
instead of any homophones
of ill repute.

Take me anywhere or anytime,
I don’t care. I will dare
to go anywhere.
Just… out of here.
I gotta go.
Please.
I gotta go.

Yep. Yep.
I thought so.
I thought I was ready,
but I see
in truth
I see some alternate facts at work here.
I gotta take five.

It’s funny:
I’d assumed
with the right kind of distance
with enough miles and months,
I’d be ready to make peace
and could have a civil conversation.
I thought I could be emotionless enough
for us to be normal.
I thought it was time
and we could run to talk.

I thought I was old enough
to be past this shit.

If you leave the premises
for fifteen minutes
I’ll be able to clean up
all the glass, blood and feathers.
Maybe an hour.
Then you can come back in
and I’ll get the fuck out.

I swear,
I won’t agree to another meeting
until I’m really ready for it
or our next anniversary
– whichever comes first.

Bradley says I like it
when you sound vulnerable.
You seem more human.
You should let that happen more often.

I don’t know what the look on my face is.
I hope it’s the practiced granite
I have fashioned
over these last few years.
I don’t much want to be vulnerable,
I mutter.
Being vulnerable is…
I don’t finish the thought.

Bradley doesn’t either.
He simply sits
and listens.

If I share
if I admit
if tell too much,
I don’t know
what people will know about me
and I don’t know if I’d like that.

I like to be in control
which vulnerability ill affords,
I say.

Well, do what you like,
Bradley says,
but I thought vulnerable looked good on you.
and he walks away.

I don’t know what my face looks like now
either.

Your mission
should you choose to accept it:
initiate a conversation
that another living person
might possibly take a moment’s interest in.
Think you’re up to the task?
Excellent.

Of course
that is only step one.
Following that
you must express continued interest
in the responses
and extend the dialog
with as much meaningful interaction
in both your parts
for as long as you comfortably can.

You must not check out early.
You cannot be rude.
You simply have to be engaged
and involved
and do everything you can
to share the space with your partner
in that moment
for the duration of that moment.

I believe you can take this on.
I believe it is necessary.
I believe it is a requirement for you to continue your assignment to be human
and to learn to live
amongst your people.
Your mission starts
now.

There’s a way to look at it
where it’s funny
where the events
as they’ve transpired
these last few months
have been a comedy
and the actions that have been perpetrated
upon you
and yours have been humorous
and the resulting pratfalls
and cracks and splats
and broken backs
have been incredibly hilarious.

It might serve you
to see events
through that lens.
It may prove
to make events more tolerable
if you choose
to see your life
as one with a laugh track
and not a sour sour score
weeping through all the tortured scenes
that have been a menace to watch
let alone live.

You might find yourself happier
if you could find yourself
in the Humor section
along with the other joke materiel.
It might make everything easier to take.

Don’t do it.
Do not take any of this lighter
for even a second.
None of it is funny.
None of it.