jonberger

Amanda, I failed you.
You weren’t the first
and you weren’t the worst.
There were others at the same time
but I was thinking of you today
more than twenty years after
and I hope I didn’t fuck things up
too much for you.

You were brilliant.
You were so capable
and in the hands of a capable teacher
who knows
what your fourth grade could have been
but I wasted your time.
I wasted everyone’s time
and probably the next year
you got the education you deserved
while the other kids continued to slide
into further anonymity
but you were an amazing student
with a fertile mind
who deserved more
than what I had to give then or even now.

I’m sure you did well enough eventually
despite my paltry skills
in your elementary school.
I wish I had been worthy
of being part of your narrative.
I hope all of your potential
has since been realized.

So you know how
you’ve gone down a road
for a long time
and you were never really sure
if it was taking you the right direction
and the longer you’re on it,
the more sure you are
that it’s not taking you
where you want to go
and your backseat driver loser friends,
they’re all saying,
"why’d you go this way, dorkus?"
because that’s the way they talk
because they’re the frigging dorkuses,
you ask me.

So you gotta keep going this way
to shut them up
even though you think
you might have seen
different state markers coming up
and you’re pretty sure
you missed the house party
ya’ll were going to
but if you go back now,
you’re just
a) admitting defeat to the dorkuses
b) missing out on whatever this road in front of you has in store
and c) it’ll mean it was all a mistake.

If you go forward
there’s a chance that you’ll get to exactly
where you were going at first
or there’s a chance you’ll get somewhere better.
There’s a chance, even,
that whatever you find
on this road taken
will make it worth the mistake
despite the fact that you missed the party
and slept in the car
and had to piss in a jar or whatever.

This is all theoretical, of course.
I know exactly where I’m going.
Don’t worry.

I just finished a poem
about being a bad teacher
but when I reviewed it for spelling errors
(there were none
because I was a great student)
I realized that it read
completely and inadvertently
as an admission
of a series of amoral crimes
I would rather not divulge.

I celebrate the aberrant
but as god as my witness
I never touched that parrot in that poem
not in the way it seemed
according to my awkward allusions.
Also, the battery was consenting
and cis.

No.
You may not see the poem in question.
Some certain things
a man must keep private.

If you could maybe
for a change
take a breath
and think about what you’re doing
before you’re doing it
just act out after you’ve considered
what the repercussions of the act might be
and imagine all the dominoes falling
in all their possible permutations…

If you used that evolutionarily developed brain
the way you are almost certainly capable of
don’t you think
things might go
a different way for you?

Think about the answer.
I can wait.

Throw the coin down
and eventually
it’s gonna hit the bottom.
It may take a long time.
It may make a really faint noise
when it finally hits.

You may have to take a fucking nap
or two
before the final ‘ploink’
when the metal meets the splat
but eventually when you drop the nickle
after it falls
at some point
it’s gonna find the nadir.

Everything does.
Just wait.

Then,
after you’ve heard the ‘ploink,’
figure out what’s next.

For some time now
talking to you
has proven much harder
than writing to you
and if I’m honest
writing at you is really much more
the preferred form
of communication.

There are things I need to say
but it seems
I am not prepared
or just too scared
to dare to listen to any kind of response.

What kind of a man does that make me?
Is the sort of question
I would ask
if I left any space
for anyone to ever answer.

As it is
I don’t really know why I find myself chagrinned
when I’m constantly left
at the end of my days
alone
with nothing but echoes
of empty silence.

To Mike Cannon,
who had the nerve to be present
when I corrected him
when he said his grandmother
had come down from the Bronx
for his East Village show:

Just because I was mistaken
when I told you
that your syntax was wrong
in your sentence
is no reason
for you to to disagree with me
in the moment of my error.

I mean, really, Mike Cannon,
who do you think you are
to suggest that your opinion
as to how to speak
our common language
compares to mine?
My inaccuracy
is no excuse
for you to try
however politely
to suggest
that I was wrong.

Sit on that thought
for a while, Mike Cannon,
and so can your grandma
up in the Bronx
or wherever she might live
in whatever direction you might think
is most appropriate.

It’s probably not that big a deal.
You’re probably not as concerned about this
as I am.
I’m probably much more in my head about this than I need to be. I’ve probably imagined this to be a much bigger deal
than it probably is.

You’re certainly not scheming
with your coven of witches
switching plans
coming up with better ways
to punish me out of my wits
for my worthless wasted whilings.
You’ve got better things to do
I assume
probably.
Maybe.
I hope.

No doubt,
I’m imaging things.
Most likely,
I’m blowing shit out of proportion.
I can’t have such an accurate bead
on the pulse of the people.
It’s impossible that
all the evil ideas I have
about whatever you might be considering
could be accurate
could they?

I’ve got to be wrong, right?
Could you…
could you say something, please?
Anything?

I am sorry.
I am trying.
I know how frustrating it must be
or, I think I can imagine.
It’s not a problem
I’ve ever had myself.

I have never known
anyone to look at me
and consistently see magic and mystery
and music and beauty
all at once.
I have never been told
that the view of me
or the thought of me
create spells and swirls
so that other things fade.

For me
it is impossible to behold you
and not see the lights
that always ensorcel.
It’s not your doing, I know.
You’re unaware,
are as much a victim of their effect as I.
But the lights around you
make it difficult to view your features
as anything other than amazing.

I am trying to see you objectively,
I swear.
I strive to see you
through the piss-colored glasses
that temper the rest of my reality
but something about you
makes it so far futile.

You were supposed to be a god.
You were meant to be a hero.
You were planning to marry a gold digger
– not that you’d care.
It wouldn’t matter
because you could afford to look into the heart of the matter so powerful
so pure
so pulsing with potential applied
would you be.

You were gonna dance with stars
and not in some sort of ABC reality kinda way.
You were destined to be in the firmament
with celestial entities bright as you
fiery and tempestuous as you were
in potential.
What happened?
What became of all of those expectations?
Whatever happened to twenty two?

You were going to own San Francisco outright,
remember?
All of San Francisco
and a solid block
in Manhattan
and maybe some kind of land in the outer boroughs.
You weren’t picky.
You just wanted it all.

Those were the days, right?
When you wanted things?
When you had hopes for yourself
belief in your own sense of accomplishment.
You had faith you would conquer.
You lacked doubt.
You didn’t know better.
Those were the days.

Would that you could ever be so stupid again.
What would you give
for a moment of that?