jonberger

I just passed your apartment
or what I think was your apartment.
It’s been so many years since I had your address information
and I don’t know how accurately
I ever committed your personal data to my memory.
Your breasts, though,
they will be etched in my adolescent mind
forever.

They were magnificent
and stretched my boundaries
and tissue
in ways I couldn’t understand
for years to come.

I learned to run
after you
in helpless hope to catch
and touch
all that you had to offer.
Occasionally,
I felt success
and your chest.
My heart raced
as had my legs.

Those were good times
just around adolescence
and I appreciated you
– or parts of you –
until we were cruelly separated
by lunchroom attendants
and different school districts.

I’ve missed you, Sam,
and thought of you spastically
though our years apart.
I forget sometimes
that we were born on an island
and raised so close
for so long.
Perhaps we are still near
though divided by decades.

Know, though
that even if you never see me again
I am looking for you
at you
always.

It’s hard
to walk with you.
I keep turning
to stare
and fall all over my big dumb feet.
My pants tent out
and I end up taking little hop-steps
to keep up.
The boner I wear
isn’t mine.

It exists solely for you.

It’s hard to talk with you.
My tongue swells
and lips blister near your heat.
I cannot keep a cool head
and douse myself in frosty drinks
to wash away the nervous sweats
you make me produce.

It’s hard to argue with you
when your speedy and sharp tongue

cuts me up
inadvertently
thoughtlessly demolishing my best-case scenarios.
I feel like a whetting stone sometimes.

It’s hard to be with you
clearly
but still
you have a way
of drawing out a tenderness
no other will feel.

I may have had
my last Mexican meal.
The last three times
I tried that thing
I found it
very trying indeed.

I do not think
I can stomach half the foods
that I used to.
The poisons I once would freely choose
leave me for extended periods
of little use.

I will miss the Mexican mouthfuls
of my ill-spent youth
and my ill-spent middle age
and my ill-spent last week
but I shall find a way
to persevere
after this declared change of diet.

And today
I do declare it:
never again
shall I enter a Taco Bell
with a hangover
for breakfast.

To the French girls who
inexplicably
were uninterested in a ménage a trois
with moi:
your loss, babies!
I could certainly do better
than getting saddled with your perfect bodies
and hyper educated minds
for a night.
I dodged a bullet
for sure
and you,
you both just missed out
on a story you could dine out on
for generations!

Think about it:
how often
would you have the chance
to take part in
an accidental homicide?
There is no way
I would have been able
to survive an evening of excitement
with the likes of you
two.

You’d probably have gotten off
of charges for vehicular manslaughter
after taking me on the ride of my life
but the description
of the look on my face
when I received la petite mort
gigantesque
– how exploited
exhausted
and appreciative I appeared –
would have no doubt
kept you in drinks for weeks alone.

All of that opportunity
all that experience
lost
just because of your claims
to find me repugnant,
repulsive,
and – I don’t know what malodorant means,
but it don’t sound good.

Your loss, though,
toots one and toots two.
I’ll find someone else,
I’m sure,
to assist me
in my curious form of suicide.

Adios
(that means screw off)!

Welcome to the world, little one.
I am so
so glad to have you back.
We missed you
while you were gone
quite a bit.

Was it hard
to be away from your loving parents
after you left?
It was hard for us
but we’re overjoyed
to find you born
again
in the new guise you have chosen.

Thank you for returning to us.
Thank you for arriving
a second time
as our baby boy.
We shall
I swear
love you as much as we possibly can
and hope you last longer
than the last time.

When you wake up
you will feel refreshed.
When you wake up
you will forget what had happened.
When you wake up
you will become renewed
and assume all the responsibilities
that were given up before closing your eyes
and assuming the position.
When you wake up
you will be ready for more.

It will not take long
for you to return to the upright position,
simply a few instants of counting down
will have you capable of resuming
what you left
where you left off.

In just a few
you will wake up
at the count of five
four
three
two one…
good morning.

My therapist is blaming all my problems
on my father
which seems somewhat unfair
as he is somewhat dead.
My father.
My therapist is quite alive
though I sometimes wish it otherwise.

Like now.
My father is defenseless
and hasn’t been the bastard that browbeat me
for decades now.
“He changed,” I said,
“And anyway, he’s dead.”
My therapist remains adamant
in the face of my father’s necrosis
and finds fault with him
in everything.

I don’t like to speak ill of the dead
despite how easy it can be.
And I don’t want to heap all my troubles
at the feet of a man
who can’t defend himself.
That, it seems,
is my therapist’s job.
No wonder he charges so much.

I think
that my therapist thinks
that laying blame
at someone’s feet
will make it easier
for me to heal the trauma
of all those yesterdays.
My therapist’s heart
is in the right place
I hope.

My dad’s,
of course,
is not.
His heart
was donated
to a Great Lakes medical school.

Because I respect your opinion
I am trying to like your favorite band.
So far
it is not going well.

There is nothing wrong with them,
per se.
They are all right in every way I can define
but
as I listen further
to these songs that
speak so deeply to you
I remain perplexed.
What makes you hear angels
when they seem so perfectly
ordinary?

The band is melodic.
The band is competent.
The band is pleasant
but their songs don’t sing to me
if you know what I mean.
I thought you might
since you’re capable of superimposing
such meaning onto their little singles
and labeling them as great.

I will keep listening
because I want to believe
because I hope to find some significance
because I respect your opinion
or at least your legs.

After hours
Howard and I
snuck into the park
ill-gotten goods under hand,
ill-omened anxiety on face
apprehension entirely in mind.

It was the Fourth
and we sought to blow our loads
absent of any observers.
There was no one around
so we unleashed our handful of firecrackers
and taking turns
checking for the authorities
we let loose our little devices.

The explosions
were slight
disappointing
and our nerves were on high
so we got out of the park quick
never truly getting to appreciate
the wonders of the evening
and the liberties
that we had tried to take
in the night.

To the gaggle of girls
who came to the party
and left
without ever introducing themselves to me:
My name was Jon.
I was a really nice guy
sitting in the corner
looking for friendship
and maybe something more
that night
but you didn’t notice.
You couldn’t be bothered.
You had better things to do
better people to talk to
than me.

You were so busy
engaging with one another
you missed out on the sure thing
in the corner
that you could have had
with me.
I was easy.
I was amenable.
I was available
for whatever perversions you wished to explore
– any of you. All of you.
Whatever.

You missed it.
You missed me
possibly the best chance you could have ever had
and you probably don’t even know it.
I just wish
you realized
what it is that you lost out on.
Then, perhaps,
I would be better satisfied.

I wonder if any of you had names.