jonberger

To get to sleep at night,
make yourself sleep at night.
Work at it. Earn it.

Tire yourself out.
Walk the extra megamile.
Exercise further/faster/more furiously.
Read yourself sick.
Excite yourself near exhaustion.
Stimulate yourself beyond belief.
Make it so your day cannot stand a second more
so that you could do nothing but snore for eight hours plus forty four.

This is the way to get yourself a comfy bed:
insist that you have nothing else instead.
Exhaust every other thing from your life.

Joy sometimes seems beyond me
like I’m just riding along,
a viewer rather than a participant.

I was distantly aware of the game
I was at today.
It was a chilly experience.
I wonder how I could have felt further engaged.
I wasn’t invited to play in the Minor Leagues,
so being on the field wasn’t an option.

I could have studied up on the stats,
but really?
The runs were from loaded bases due to balls, balls, balls.
This was not thrilling baseball.

It’s not baseball that’s the issue, though.
I need to be excited.
Should I have been excited at the game?
If not there, where should I be excited?

Look out, citizens! Beware, scofflaws!
It’s the Sanctioned Individual,
to stop you from committing crimes against the state!

If you cross the street or spit improperly
or have sex outside the appropriately delineated means
according to laws not updated in three centuries,
the Sanctioned Individual is there to put a stop
to your heinous actions and set you straight in a matter of moments!

The Sanctioned Individual stops bribes on a dime!
The Sanctioned Individual helps Girl Scouts, every time!
The Sanctioned Individual is good to the last drop.
The Sanctioned Individual; when you can’t find a cop.

Yes, the Sanctioned Individual is the hero of the times
when you want a state-supported male-like figure,
but don’t need to know his identity,
and are uncomfortable with the power dynamics displayed
by most police in this day and age.
The Sanctioned Individual does not use firearms,
though his level of hand-to-hand violence may prove
just as diabolical in the long run.

If you have crime
– or just a little free will –
in your heart,
beware the Sanctioned Individual!

While that was certainly a bad soft pretzel
I cannot in good conscience say
that it was the worst I ever had.

In high school
they sold pretzels that should not have
dared used the name.
They were large things, indeed,
and they were doughy,
but somehow, the pretzels were always wet
and cold.

A bad experience.
They were cheap
but not worth it.

I stayed away from soft pretzels
for years because of these things.
The pretzel I had today, in fact,
was an aberration.

What was I doing?

Me Graang.
Me first human killed by blueberries.
Me embarrassed, retroactively.
Me learned word “retroactively” at library.
Me learned about library on website.
Me learned about website from Sheila, who psychic mediumed me in first place.
Hi Sheila! Hope your psychic mediumship is doing good!

Everybody ate blueberries in Graang’s time.
Me ate bad blueberries, me die.
Everybody stop eating blueberries for years, until everybody dies.
Then everybody eat blueberries again. Nobody dies.
Graang embarrassed, see?

Me like blueberries. Maybe ate too many blueberries?
Maybe not eat blood-red blueberries that look like poison?
Anyhoo, me dead. All Graang’s family dead.
Many Graang’s descendent’s dead,
but Alessandra Mussolini doing all right.
Good to know.

Ted Talk now over.
Any questions?

They called the strip Christmas
because they wanted the barren place to have a generous spirit.
It did not.

You walked far enough along into either of the lands connected by the isthmus,
and you got to fertile areas
but the actual rock that brought them together
was little but stone and some moss.

At least the moss looked a little festive,
if slimy.

At the right time of year,
they tried to light the isthmus.
It was not a successful practice.
The fires were washed away,
as were the electrics that replaced them.

It made the locals in the area
begin to question their god,
which, secretly, was all right with Jesus,
who preferred a more selective clientele,
who thought about their patron a little more carefully.

That’s probably a different topic, though.
Less about isthmuses.

I don’t know if you stole the comic way back when.
It was a valuable comic
and it was gone from my house
and you were there around when it disappeared
and you liked comics back then
and you liked that character’s comics a lot, too.

I’m not sure if I’m joking
and this isn’t really funny at all.

I don’t know if you stole my comic
and I think you were accused of theft at your school, too.

In the grand scheme,
it’s not too important,
which is why I’ve never brought it up,
but did you steal my comic book?
You shouldn’t have stolen my comic book.
That’s a violation,
and it’s beneath us.
It’s beneath us for me to ask this question
but it’s beneath us for you to have done it.
But it’s beneath us for me to dwell on this.

Oh, it should be water under the bridge
– but the water would ruin the comic,
and it was valuable!

I’m not sure if I’m joking,
but this isn’t funny at all.

Did you steal the comic?
You can tell me.
I won’t be mad.
Not really.
Just tell me
– no, don’t.
Wait…

If I ate you like a cake
may I be the first to say,
you should taste so crumb’some sweet,
but I ought not to’ve seemed like that.
It wasn’t the right way to be.
I should have acted like a chef
and saved you for another’s plate,
but you seemed too good to miss.

This is to say, if I had been
the one to bite at you, ever.
Had I not a nibbler been,
forget I have said anything.

Because your brain likes drama,
you probably think things are more than ever.
Your problems more imposing,
your enemies are bigger,
your memories more impressive.

The reality: data is a thing,
and data is easily manipulated.
Data is being manipulated, in fact,
like never before,
so you have to be incredibly careful
that you are not tricked into believing things
so you are not thrown into a crisis
like never before.

Seriously, you could be put into
such a critical dangerous period into our history
like…
you see what’s going on?

Inside my gut there is life
bursting to the gills
striving to help me in ways I can’t begin to understand.
I’ve got a biome in my belly
that’s working to process all the things
I’ve things I’ve thrown at it
today alone.

I’d offer thanks,
but other than shouting to my middle,
I’m not sure how
and I’m not entirely sure for what.
Perhaps I’ll just pat myself
and hope for the best.