jonberger

I know what I’m supposed to say
how I should act
at least in this instance
but for the life of me
I can’t stand straight and fly right.

Knowing the thing to do
is not always enough
to be able to do that thing.

So I’m sorry
for how I left things
and I wish I could tell you
sincerely
that yesterday was a day
that will never be repeated
but I cannot in confidence
share any such thing.

I am the same idiot
I was yesterday
and all odds
along with prior history
point to the distinct possibility
that I will betray you again
in much the same way.

I know what I did
and I wish I could stop it
but I don’t yet know
how I could pull that off.

When you don’t believe
what do you live for?
If for you
there is no higher power
then what directs your days?
How do you keep going
without some sort of faith?
You gotta have faith,
don’t you?

I’m genuinely asking.
I need to learn
so I can continue
somehow.

I suspect
all the institutions
that used to guide me.
Now
there is nothing left
to keep me steady
and I don’t see how
I will ever feel joy
or trust
or faith.

I don’t know anything anymore
and I’m scared
and I’m small
and I need to have something
to connect me
to the world.

Something must bind me
with others.
There has to be something
to make me less alone
mustn’t there?

Mustn’t there?

You can thank Able and Linn
for chlorinating the water
saving millions of lives
and you can thank Edward Jenner
for eradicating smallpox
providing five hundred million with continued life
or Norman Borlaug
for feeding a quarter billion
with some resilient wheat.

These great men deserve great praise
as heroic artists
who saved
through their work
a very great many of us
most of us never even knowing.

Take Haber and Bosch
whose fake fertilizer
found fantastic ways to feed billions.

And Fleming with his penicillin
and Landsteiner,
that melancholy genius
father to both hematology
and immunology
who learned about blood types
allowing successful transfusions?
Billions of lives left living between them
because of them.

They warrant appreciation
though they are gone
so cannot appreciate it.

Joining the ranks of the dead,
so recently,
is Stanislav Petrov,
once disgraced soviet officer
who was upbraided
for not following procedure
in 1983.

When his computers declared
that silver-lined clouds
were really American missiles,
calm Petrov read the evidence,
and decided whether to inform Moscow
that the Curtain was to be pierced.

If he had,
surely none of us would be here today
as the MAD war ensuing
would have ended all.

But Petrov kept mum
calling “false alarm!”
The world failed to end
and the lieutenant colonel was reprimanded
for failing to file the proper papers.
He lost his position,
had a breakdown,
and finally died
all after saving more humans
than anyone else ever.

I wrote this
when my father caught cancer.
He was fighting for his life
against his own body
and I felt so helpless
and had to find some way
to take control of the chain of events
and I couldn’t will him back to full strength
so I put pen to paper
or maybe finger print to keyboard,
whatever.
Anyhow, I did this:

God, if you’re listening,
don’t do this.
You can pick amongst a billion other sacrifices.
Don’t take my dad.
What kind of fucked up shit
would that be?
I’m not done growing up;
how will your divine plan
ever reach culmination
if you’re just slaughtering all the people
prostrate before you?
It would be a PR disaster!

Tell you what, let’s make a deal:
You do this little thing for me
and whenever you want
if there may be some favor
you may need of me,
just ask.
I’ll be there for you.
In the meantime, I’ll be sure
to sing all hosannahs
to all the faithful
wherever I meet them.
What do you say,
deal?

The piece wasn’t very good.
It didn’t work,
after all.

She wore yellow
a long flowing hippie skirt
and one of those tight angora sweaters,
the kind
that just compels you to reach out
and pet it.
The sweater was striking
and so was she
and while we’d spoken a few times
passing on campus
I didn’t believe I was in any position
to offer a complement
on her most excellent attire.
We just didn’t have that sort of relationship.

Instead
I wrote a story
about a girl who wore yellow
and changed the world around her with her beauty
and I pulled it
off my dot matrix printer
and I walked the stairs to her dorm room and
with her door closed
I tacked it to her wall
and left it for all to see.

I don’t think there were any clues
as to who wrote the page-long ode
so she could assume
it was the handsomest boy at school
who had been watching her from afar,
some secret admirer who might sweep her away
from all of this higher education rigamarole,
or some creepy kid
on the first floor of the hall she lived on.
She knew, though,
that some secret admirer
was watching her,
from a distance, studying,
waiting.
He knew where she lived
and could reach out
at any minute
with or without
her permission.

I never addressed the letter.
I tried once
to engage her on a bus,
neither of us wearing anything notable,
but she broke eye contact
and wouldn’t talk to me.
We just didn’t have
that sort of relationship.

After we parted
I didn’t get into a fight
with those four jerks
who called me
some kind of a clerk.

I didn’t break any bones
or lose any blood
or soil any shirts
or any other particles of clothing
that can be seen.

I didn’t borrow any trophies
or punch any horses
or break any windows
or dance with any hookers.
I was cool.

I was calm.
I didn’t do anything destructive
or reductive
or deconstructive
and I didn’t make anybody cry.

Anybody else cry.

At the end of the night
after we parted ways
and agreed that time and space
might make things
more acceptable between us
I found myself in no more dangerous places
or ridiculous situations
than I am used to
on a normal Saturday night.

It’s like the time
I received that participation award
for making it
to three out of five days
of that convention event.
I am blessed
with small rewards.
So yeay, me!
I hope you agree
if we ever speak again.

When you said I could walk you home
at the end of the day,
I ran out of the place
excited, nervous,
energetic and a little bit sick.

I was enthusiastic for the opportunity
to spend a little time with you
even in transit,
even if I was delivering you
to a door you would only lock behind you.
I was filled with kinesis,
anticipating whatever possibilities
might be coming my way
a few hours later
at the end of your shift.

So I lost track of time.
And I lost track of my sobriety
and eventually, I lost track of you
missing out on the golden ticket
that would provide me precious moments
of your day
or maybe you just ghosted me.
The jury’s still out.
One thing is sure, though,
after your shift was over,
I was more than a little sick.

If you are reading this note
it is because I have run away.
I am gone from you now
and you are never
never never
never never going to find me.
Ever.

By the time you read this
I shall have entered
into a new kingdom
and will be living the life of Rilo Kiley
under some black light.
I’ll have found a better place
and you’ll be without me.
You will be unable to see me
or talk to me
or apologize for the fuzzy dice
which shouldn’t have been that hard to do
after all anyway.

When you get this letter,
don’t come looking for me.
It won’t work;
I’ll be too far gone
been hidden in ways
you could never conceive.
Don’t trouble yourself
you’d just look the fool
(and definitely don’t visit the Diner on forty eighth
between six and ten)
because it won’t work
and you’ll never see me again.
Ever.

I really thought we were gonna do it.
I expected us to be the couple
to make it
to prove that you could meet in grade school
and last to the very end
and I guess we did last to the very end
of the relationship
but that wasn’t what I meant.
That wasn’t what I expected.
That wasn’t what I’d hoped.

You don’t get it, I guess.
If you could just,
I don’t know,
look inside my head
then you’d understand.

I’ve been having dreams lately.
Unsettled dreams.
Naked dreams.
Dreams where I am doing what has to be done
– weird shit –
but all along
I feel
there’s something else I should be doing
and it always feels
the seconds ticking away
will take that thing farther away,
make it harder to ever finish
but it’s all finished now anyway, right?
That’s how I wake up.

I’m sorry.
I don’t mean to be so maudlin
so fucking cliche.
I swear, though,
this’ll be the last time
you hear me go on like this.

After all,
there’s always a last everything,
eventually.

The word choice,
I admit,
was uninspired.
It was a cliche,
thoughtless,
and really,
truly
beneath both of us.

I should have been more thoughtful
in how I composed myself
and my language
and I can assure you
that languidly lazy turn of speech
will not be repeated.

In fact,
let me be sure and precise
in this statement:
if ever another occasion occurs
where you hear a phrase
akin to “stupid cunt-smooshing whore”
again,
be secure that I shall immediately apologize,
as speedily and direct
as I have right now.

After all,
who am I
to judge your profession?