jonberger

You may hate me today
but that won’t last
because you are stupid and lame
and your opinions are as flaky
as your pizza crust
which, I would be remiss in reminding you
is not supposed to be flaky
– ever.

You permit almost everything
which is why
it is so easy
to abuse you
even when that’s not what I want.
You invite humiliation
as evidenced by how often
it arrives at your door.

It is possible
that your incredible gullibility
will afford forgiveness
for even my most recent affronts.
Honestly,
I’m not too sure.
Your dumb Jesus
would encourage what I’ve done
so why wouldn’t you
even after you find out
exactly what I’ve done to your beta fish.

We’ll have to see
together
after I’ve added
to the load you carry
just a few extra straws.

I didn’t talk about it much.
I didn’t think about it much
but
my gay dad
stopped eating pork
while I was a teenager.

He was getting more in touch
with his religion
my gay dad was
and
he didn’t feel he was living
quite so righteous a life
when he fed on the swine.

And I thought
– when I thought about it –
“So what?
A man can eat
as he chooses
at whatever times
and of whatever delicacies.
Who am I to judge
how he dines?”
Even though I love bacon
with every fiber of my tongue.

My gay dad was inconsistent
about his kashruth consumption.
His shrimp intake never abated
– though I noted he never ate the tails –
but my gay dad never smoked or swallowed a sausage
any time
after I was sixteen.

His dining tendencies
are not what defined my gay dad.
I didn’t care that much
about what he ate
or didn’t.
I’m just glad
he enjoyed what he had.

You asked me once
if I thought I’d ever be happy
always striving to find someone
who met my exhaustingly detailed standards.
You wondered
I believe
if it could ever be satisfying
to constantly live in hope
instead of living
with true companionship.

At the time
I answered in the affirmative
believing that joy could be found
in the quest
no matter how long
or arduous
or fruitless
it might prove to be.

Now
my life has changed.
It’s been some time
since I was so positive
about my forecast of the future
and I wonder now
increasingly
how this could ever turn out right.

I do have faith in the journey,
though it is smaller than in earlier days.
I continue to have some small belief
that someday
I still might find
what I’m looking for
and the right person
will be right there for me
if I only have patience
and fortitude
and –

Fuck it.
Fuck the quest.
It might be time
to lower my standards
and give you a call.

I’m sorry.
I gotta cut this short.
If we continue this conversation
I’m gonna lose time
ogling the blonde at my ten o’clock.
You get it, right?
I have to shut our chat down.

I need to focus my attention
on the important things
like staring at her legs
and the torn fishnets atop them,
pointed boots beneath
and the skirt…
Oh god.

Get moving.
You’re in my way.
I need my view.
Wait.
I’m sorry
but
do you have a camera on you?

One more and you’re done.
One more and you’re out.
One more
and we can just call this whole thing quits.
It’s not gonna take much more
– just the one –
we’re past the home stretch now, baby,
we’re inches from the Finish
and you just need to do this
one more thing
and then we can take a bath.
We can have the pudding.
We can watch our stories.
We’ve just got to go back into it
and do one more.
Can you do it?
I know you can.
One more.
Done?
Good.

Another.

The coupons expired.
The special offer
I had
to go to the Uber Grove
that club you mentioned once
for a very discounted price,
that offer ended
yesterday.

We had months to go,
months in which we could have planned
scheduled
set up a perfect time
to go to that perfect place.
I know I tried
but it never seemed important enough
for us
to actually pick a date
and save it.

So now it’s too late
to get into Uber Grove
at the drastically reduced rate.
We can always go
another time
at the full charge
but if we couldn’t make the time
with this motivation
what will we do now?

Afterwards
when we got home
we had to clean up.
There were bandage wrappers
and tubes
and blood everywhere.
Furniture had been moved
so he could spread out
for them to do CPR
and they had all been too busy
loading him into the ambulance
to clean up after themselves.

We had time
afterwards
when we got home
so we swept
and we washed
and we put the furniture back
where it belonged
and then began rearranging
since there was no one there
to critique what we had done
just like
there was no one to tell them
they didn’t need to leave all that crap
all over his floor.

I was the boy with the impenetrable eyes.
You were the girl with the impermanent mind.
We dated for several years
before you found someone
more suitable
and threw me out.

You moved to Australasia
and I tried to get over you
which so far
has yielded limited results.
If you still think of me
and have moved back from that continent
I would not be adverse
to going out for some tea.

If you still live down under
or are still with that boy
please disregard this note.

You saw me
reading a book you’d already finished
and we talked about it
for a little while.
I thought you were cool
and approachable
even though it was you
who approached me.
I don’t know what you thought of me
but we seemed to be getting along.

I was going to ask for your email
so we could talk books later
but then the bombs went off
and the ambulances took us
to different destinations.
I lost a leg
and an ear
but still look basically the same.

Did you make it out?
Have you been back
to that cafe since?
Want to meet there for milk and cookies?
Lightning couldn’t strike twice
could it?

At some point
you’ll realize I did a very good thing here.
Some day
you’ll thank me for this.
Eventually
you’ll look back
and understand.
You’ll realize that the frustration
was short term
but the reward,
that would just keep on giving
ad infinitum
for the rest of your days.

It may take some time
and there may be a lot of anger
along the way
but trust me
this is for the best.
It’s the right decision
for both of us
and even if it takes a dozen weeks
you’ll be glad
we didn’t frequent that particular call girl.