jonberger

Look, Optimum, it’s great

– really kind –

that you thought I’d enjoy faster internet

and decided to provide it to me

(though, I gotta say,

I never realized it.

You never told me

and I never experienced any pickup in speed),

but it seems a lot less great

and a lot less kind

that you charged me so much for it.

See, I’ll repeat,

I never realized you were changing me
since you never told me,

and sure, the info was provided

in my bills

– bills I never bothered to open

because you encourage customers to automatically pay

so that they don’t have to be bothered

to think about just what they’re paying for –

but I never saw the bills.

I never saw the bills

and I never saw the service

and you’re telling me

you’re cutting off the service

– that I never asked for

and never received –

because I haven’t paid the charge

that I had never recognized

in the first place.

But you won’t remove the charges
for the unrequested, unreceived unexperience

because I didn’t report them
months earlier
(since you never told me).

All of this is to say, Optimum,

fuck you very much

for the awful service

and the awful customer service

and the awful awful awful processes.

I hate you

and really wish I didn’t need your service

to tell you

just how much I hate you.

Fuck you again, Optimum,

and fuck you with fervor.
Fuck you entirely

and fuck you roughly

and fuck you with the fury

of a thousand fucking tire fires.

FUCK
YOU.

He’s texting one of his many lovers
when he should be drinking with me.
“We should be drinking!”
I shout, and
he puts down his phone
and looks me over.
“You serious?” He asks.

I nod.

“Then let’s drink!”

When I wake up
we are behind bars
in a dumpster
with bananas and rinds
as our blanket and bed.

“That
was a night.”
He says
and I don’t have the heart
to tell him
that it might have been a night
and a day
and then another night.

Instead I say,
“Hair of the dog?”
and we begin again.

This cycle continues
until enough brain cells are killed
and one of us can no longer continue.

I’ll let you know
when that occurs.

We are all going to die
and everyone we know
is going to die
and all the things we create and leave behind
will also, in time,
wither and die
she said
and I nodded
because it was true.

We’re all on the way to dust
she said
and no one will remember us.
Valentino, the great lover
of his generation
is barely an expression today
and soon, those few that speak of him,
even obliquely, will disappear, too.

It’s enough to make you think
I said
hoping to fill the space
she had left behind.

No,
she said
it’s enough to make you act.

Make something
of permanence,
she suggested.
Produce something of materials
that might have a chance to outlive you.
Write your name somewhere
where it can be seen
when everyone you know is gone.
In this way,
she said
you may create a legacy
that can last.

I have a website?
I offered
but she laughed.

A book,
she said
a graffiti tag,
a fort of some sort.
These things will be there after you.

Get to work,
she said.
Construct your legacy.
Find a way to be recalled
after you’re gone
so that you do not die
forever.

Fuck you, Grandma
and your goddamned trees
which are shaped any number of ways
and just straight up
like you claimed down in Carolina
that one time.

I cannot believe
this is still a sticking point
all these years later
but you never could admit
that not all trees are like bamboos.
Why couldn’t you accept the possibility of error,
you frigging old bag?

You just had to be right.
You had to argue the point
down to the fucking nub
and sabotage what little time we had that summer
and every other after.
Fuck it, Grandma
and fuck you
for being so obstinate.

Tell me
if you can
why couldn’t you let me win
even fucking once?

Natalie dressed and opened the curtains,
letting the sun shine in.
Without moving,
she looked out onto the day
and said, “we can’t keep doing this.”
I knew I couldn’t
and said so.
“I don’t think I have the stamina.”

She turned then
and told me
that mistakes had been made
and that this wasn’t the time
for levity.
I agreed with that as well.

I stared her way
viewing only a silhouette
blinded by the light behind her.
“You have defined us
since the start.
“You decided when we would meet
and how and why
and you can just as easily decide
when we should stop.
“Yours is the mind
that changes our fate.
I understand this,”
I said,
“though I may not like it.
Let me know, please,
if we can keep doing this
or if it has to end.”

Natalie, dressed,
looked me over
and up and down
and even under.
“We can come to conclusions later,”
she said
and that was the last thing either of us said
for some time to come.

The painting at the diner shines.
The Northward view of Times Square
seems recent
at first glance.
The glint on the cars,
the sparkling lights,
the Broadway shows,
the bright ads…
it all smacks of the modernist of days

until you look closer
and realize that Cats has closed
and JVC no longer makes tapes.
Mad About You is off the air
and Kodak probably doesn’t sell much film anymore.

Even the cars,
upon closer inspection,
begin to seem somewhat dated,
a bit blockier and more uniform
than you’d expect on the road today.

The painting,
now that you think about it,
is flaking at the edges,
gaining veins in strange locations.
The piece is old
and you
are ancient.
Old enough, at least,
to mistake the history presented before you
as somehow a variation
of current events.

Fuck you, Arby’s.
I’m trying to get to your cashier,
to get at the meats,
but your fucking store
closed its fucking doors
fifteen minutes before closing time
because unlike the rest of America,
you don’t seem to believe in customer service
or dedication
or money.

I tried to explain to the fuckers
washing the fucking floors
that they owed me the chance
to buy their fucking food
but they were too busy
not doing their fucking jobs
and ignoring me.

Fuck you, Arby’s
and your fucking employees
and your fucking fake-ass meats
that taste nothing like any fucking cow
under the face of the fucking earth.

See you tomorrow.
Fuck it.

The dream
the naked dream
at school
where you’re in front of the class
presenting alone
preparing to show all you got
when you realize suddenly
you are literally showing
ALL you got
– that dream
is not just a dream.

It is the universe informing you
warning you
that you are unprepared.
You are unready
for whatever is placed before you.
You are deer-headlight dumb
awaiting an embarrassment
you can only imagine.

The naked dream
is a threat to your security
a prognostication for tomorrow
or later on today,
depending on precisely
when the dream occurred.

You can listen to the dream
and try to increase
the state of preparedness,
but really,
by the time you’re dreaming,
you’re probably too late,
so you might as well sit back,
relax,
and watch your life
go down in flames.

Your brain can’t help but be obsessive.
It’s how you are wired.
To defy that
to strive to change what is indelibly your nature
is to spit in the eye
of God’s intelligent design
(Or Satan’s,
but whatever).

You were meant
to seek patterns
in the days of your meetings.
You were predestined to look for meaning
in her sighs.
You were born
to sabotage the things you most want
because of your requisites,
your neediness,
your rampant desperation.

You are a sad and pathetic man
but it is your birthright.
It was what you were always going to be.
There is nothing to do
but embrace your path
as it is unlikely
any of us
will ever embrace you again.

My therapist does not want to tell me
that he thinks
I am making no sense
even when I ask him directly.

“Am I making sense?” I ask,
over and again,
striving to convince him
to be honest with me
for at least one fucking second.
He does not respond.

“Is there a stutter?” I wonder,
as I cajole,
begging in repetition,
for the good doctor
to express his opinion
in a clear and concrete way
I can understand.
I try again.
“Can you repeat back to me
just what it is
I am getting at?”

He takes a breath
looks me in the eye
and states
“As I was saying…”
But I won’t have it.

“I don’t think
you were answering my question before.
Would you like to try
now
to tell me
What I mean?”

He doesn’t like to be interrupted
but he is patient
and remains calm
and then tries a different tack.
“If you just keep taking your -”

“Is it possible
you weren’t paying attention?”
I suggest.
“I’m just asking you,
as well as I am currently able,
if you understand what I’m saying
and whether you agree or not.”

“The important thing,”
he replies,
“Is what you think about it.”

“No,” I disagree.
“At this moment
it is vitally important
for me to figure out
if I am speaking gibberish
or if you disagree
and don’t want to tell me
or if you think
that what I said
was so idiotic
that it doesn’t warrant even being responded to.

“Right now
the utmost importance goes to
whether we are communicating,
you and I,
and what that communication is worth.”

He sighs
sits upright and says,
“I did not understand what you said.
It did not make sense
and you would not let me politely decline to respond.
Are you satisfied
with the results of this conversation?”

I stand
wild-eyed, triumphant.
“I win!” I shout
and then return to earth.

I don’t remember
the rest of the session.