jonberger

For a little while
I hated you with the fire
of three dozen suns.
I’m a little more philosophic
about it now.
You probably just couldn’t help
being a fucking douche.

You couldn’t have known
how much I’d looked forward to that dinner
with the lovely Julia,
but I still didn’t appreciate how,
spying us at that sidewalk cafe,
you just decided to join us.
Who were you to nibble on my chips?
Sure, Julia had invited you
but she couldn’t have meant it.
The dinner was our special time.

I was furious
at your temerity
and the level of comfort
you and Julia shared.
I didn’t even know
you guys knew each other.
Needless to say,
you blocked my advances
and I left alone.
I couldn’t talk to you
for the longest time
– especially considering how polite I’d been to you
so long beforehand.

God, I hated you
but I’ve mostly gotten over it.
You were just too stupid to see
what was going on
and anyway
it’s taken me a while to see
that Julia was probably not the one for me
considering her recent haircut.

So I forgive you
your trespasses
and will allow you
to further darken my doorstep
so long, of course,
you never
ever ever
touch another chip of mine again.

Now, I’m not the world’s most insightful man
but I’ve been getting the sense
you’ve been trying to tell me something:
something big
something important
something life-changing.
I don’t know what it is
but I think you’ve been laying hints,
providing clues,
giving me some small evidence
that you’ve got something to say.

I’m hoping it’s good news.
I’m hoping
you want to give me a pony
or a new phone
or one of those bagels
that’s really a peppeoni:
a begelloni.

Or maybe you want to give
this thing of ours a miss.
Maybe you’ve decided
I’m not worth knowing
the way I hoped you’d want
to know me.
Maybe you’re all done.

Possibly
you’re ready to take it to the next level
and want to offer me a ring.
If you’re trying to sniff out my potential answer
I’ll say yes.
Even if it’s just a toe ring
I’ll say yes.

So
I don’t know
what you’ve been trying to get at
but
if possible
I’d really appreciate it
if you stop laying hints
and cut to the chase.
Good or bad
I’m ready.
I’m ready to hear it
whatever it is

I was walking around downtown
with your sister
who was pretty cute
but not near as cute as you
and she asked about you
which was strange
because you guys live together
and had just shared lunch earlier
and she was your sister,
for god’s sake.

She asked what I thought of you
which was also strange
since she’s known you
ever since she was born
and it’s doubtful that my opinion
would be likely to sway her much
one way or the other.
Also
I think you know
what I think of you
and how much I think of you
and the sepia tones
and mellow soundtrack
of all my thoughts of you.

I didn’t feel comfortable
talking to your sister about it, though,
so I kept kinda quiet.
I have to say,
I didn’t really understand the conversation we were having
or she was having with me.
It’s like she was trying to say something
that she was somehow unable
or unwilling to say.
If there were certain answers
she was looking for
I don’t know what they were
or if she found them.

Eventually
we went our separate ways
and she went back home
to you, I guess
and I wandered around a little more.
When I got home
it occurred to me to reach out.
I thought I should let you know
about our little chat
since it doesn’t seem like you and your sister
talk all that much.

She wears a tattoo that reads “live fast”
but she sits so still,
quietly attentive
to each and every performer
presenting before her.

She seems to like them all
and I hope to catch her mascara’d eye
when it’s my turn to hit the stage
to see if she could find a way
to live fast with me
if only for some days.

When I find my way to the spotlight
I realize immediately
that I’ve lost her attention
or maybe her phone had something
really important to share
that she just had to learn
just at the moment
that I arrived.

Even when she does deign to look up at me
it is only fleeting
and, nervous,
I look upon myself from a distance
and realize that despite my wish to live fast with her
I am instead slowly dying alone.

The torture eventually ends
and I escape the stage
and others replace me
gaining greater appreciation than I.
The girl with the slutty tattoo
returns to her vivacious dedication
and I slink off
reminding myself
that Jews are forbidden to get tattoos
so probably
we are also unable to get with girls
who have them.

I came across a picture recently
and saw you for the first time
in forever.
You looked good
– you always do –
but seeing you again
made me realize
just how much
I miss your voice.

The way you talked,
how you would tell a story
so thoughtfully
each word chosen
with such effortless precision,
it left me close to tears.

I can live without your looks
astonishing as they are
and the way you acted
meant nothing to me
but that voice,
that careful manner,
those beautiful tones,
I hadn’t realized how bereft I’d been
without them.

Even if it’s just the alphabet
or to tell me off
is there a way
you might be at all willing
to speak at me again?

I wonder, sometimes,
what it might have been like,
growing up
then and there.
Did he play run and hide
or horseshoes
or any other sorts of streetcorner games?
What kind of friends
did he make
while young and having hair?
I don’t know at all
what it might have been like
to wear that skin he was in.

It’s too late now.
I can’t just ask him, of course.
He’s too far from the answers
of that life he once led
and besides, there’s not much you can do
to describe a thing
when you’ve never experienced the alternative.

I can only extrapolate
what it was like
in those golden days
during that silver age
of bronzer and CopperTone
unless I can find anyone left
in that old neighborhood
who remembers papa.

(Dick and Margarita)
He died on her birthday
which was not the sort of surprise
she was looking for.
Earlier that day
he had thrown her a party
which WAS a surprise
– particularly as it followed a fight
he had faked
to lead her astray.

The party was delightful
particularly as it showed his consideration
on a day that had been so special
for him too.
So why, then,
did he have to go off on that joyride?
What made him
need to leave
to look for something more
to do that day?
If he hadn’t left
he wouldn’t be gone.
Why wasn’t the party,
and before that, the reception
and before that, the marriage
enough?
Why wasn’t she enough?

He never answered that question,
but he did provide her
a final gift
that took a long time for her to appreciate:
independence.

Evel Knievel changed his first name
but didn’t want it to be spelled
like evil
even though that was why he took the nickname
in the first place.

He cheated his partners
lied to his friends
and sexed around
in ways his wife was forced
to know about.
He stole from communists
but it was the sixties
so maybe that was legal.

The man crashed
as often as he landed
defying physics while breaking bones
– both his and others’.
Evel got around
as is evil’s wont
but he wore white
so kids would see him as a good guy
and we did.
I did.

He’s probably jumping something
somewhere
and he probably spends as little time
in the ground
as he can.
Whether he’s flying above it
or racing below?
To that,
I have no answer.

I never really wanted to discuss this
so baldly
but, if you want this conversation
so badly
I am certainly willing to partake.

I was rude,
that’s true.
I was disrespectful.
I was unkind.
All these things I have consistently
freely admitted
but never before
did I provide a reason.
I was not kind
because it is not my way.
I was disrespectful
because I do not respect you.

If I really thought you were my equal
I’d have behaved somewhat differently.
I could be wrong, of course.
If I were your equal,
I’d be more prone to being wrong
but I am without peer
and don’t make mistakes like you would.
I don’t make emotional decisions like you do.
I don’t let bias color me
as is your wont.

I’m not saying that makes me superior
– not in those exact words.
But
you do know what imply means,
don’t you?
Good.
And in his context?

We were driven back into town
lulled in the back seat
by the rhythm of the ride
and the heat and waves
and the conversation we had all enjoyed.

We were sleepy
so it’s unclear what was reality
versus dream
but our knees touched
our hands touched
and our lips, perhaps,
joined for a while.

It must have been imagination
– wishful thinking.
I was married.
You were young
and your lover was in a different vehicle
meeting us back in town
soon enough.
But in the rolling car
with our silent driver
and the exhaustion
after the tension of the tides
made anything seem possible.

Even the traffic
because of the parade
seems to fit
The costumes, the disguises,
leading you to burrow into my chest
seemed possibly a product of fantasy
and possibly the most solid of facts.

It couldn’t last
the dream into reality
but it was something
when we drove into town
after the beach
and all that had transpired.