jonberger

Thank you for this pain.
Thank you for the torture.
Thank you for this experience,
this humiliation
that allows me
the chance
to become something more.

If not for you
and these past nineteen months
I would be stuck.
I would be stable
but in stasis.
I’d be $20,000 richer, sure
but poorer by so many stories.
I’ll be dining out for weeks
on that abdomen scar alone!

I have learned so much about myself
through these months
about my tolerances
and allergies
and the structural integrity
of my building.
I am wiser now
and have realized many things
that are all to your credit.

I owe you for this.
I thank you for this time
and these lessons
and the growth that will undoubtedly occur after the healing is complete. I appreciate what you’ve done.
Now, before the police arrived
get out.

You need to stop thinking
stop intellectualizing
stop pondering
calculating
theorizing…

You need to get out of your head
and feel a little!
You have to
– and this is really important here –
you have to find a way to experience things in the moment
not weeks later
after you’ve given it all due consideration
and written about it in your blog
and had time to work every angle
into rounded curves.

What you’re doing?
You’re living half a life.
You’re using your brain
when you should be using your heart
and your dick
and your tongue,
legs. fingers
and a variety of other parts.

Keep up what you’re doing,
and you’ll explode.
You’ll break.

You’re waiting on an accident.
You’re waiting for a fall.

Don’t.
Let yourself live.
Let yourself be.
This is my advice for you
This is my command.
Stop with the thinking and –
No!
I’m not gonna explain to you WHY
you’re overthinking.
Haven’t you been listening at all?

Once
I knew a girl
or should I say,
she once knew me?
She saw something in me
something good and just
someone who could please her
someone she could have loved.

She was a warrior princess
a hero who offered me adventures
and excitement and risky derring-do
and she asked me
if I would join her
and she looked at me
with her brightest eyes
and waited for me to say “I do,”
and
I didn’t.

I ran
far away and fast I could
for her adventures were too much
and not all of us
can fly among the stars.
Some
must remain behind
to stare after them.

Do I regret my choice?
Of course.
I wish I were a man
worthy of a warrior princess
– who was also a sex-addicted model
and scientist –
but I more regret my nature
which made me one
only fit
to stay in place
while the stories are told around me.

I think
I know what’s happening.
I have a strong feeling
about what this is.
This is a rare thing.
Normally
I doubt myself.

More: I have spent
several decades
avoiding my instincts
tamping down my gut
looking for concrete evidence
when my intuition offered all the answers.

Now, my psyche’s ears are open
and for the first time
in a long time
I am listening.
I am paying attention
to the secret clues
and seeing the truth
when it has not been spoken.

I believe
that I understand
at last
what you haven’t been able to tell me.
I get it.
Goodbye.

In darkness
past midnight
I sometimes wake screaming
eyes popped wide
as I worry
that I am daily
becoming Dave.

This is not who I thought I’d be
growing up in Manhattan.
I thought that I would become
someone unique
someone special
someone with their own dayglo brownstone
and a full block of property
in the Tenderloin.

I assumed
I would develop as creature different from generations before.
I thought I would be a Garth
or a Finnegan
or an Apollo.
I never thought
I’d end up a Dave.

A fucking Dave.
I didn’t dream then
I would be a worried
pensive and repetitive Dave.
I didn’t imagine
I would dance like Daves do
or date like a Dave
or dine at Davish establishments.

I thought I would be something else
but have found myself
only ever Dave.

I’m on the road that we took – once.
I’ve driven it dozens of times
but now I can’t think of this path
without thinking of you.
You’ve taken ownership of so much
that once was solely mine.

So many songs, memories,
friends and in-laws
are now wholly in your possession
leaving me nothing
that isn’t tainted with a tinge you.

I wonder
if you returned my calls
if you’d be willing to return
some of my memories
so that I could take control again
of my history.

But would I then lose
the only part of you that remains?
This is what I have left to think on
driving this lonely road
without you
for the thousandth time.

I think I told you the other day
that all my poems
were going to be about you
but
I’m pretty sure that was a lie.

I’ve been trying to compose
in your honor
to your image
about our past
but I find
it’s all unbearably lame.

I write about how beautiful you were
and it’s precious.
I write about how dumb I was
and it sounds mawkish and precious.
I write about how sorry I am that you’re gone
and it shows just how dumb I was.

My thoughts on you
are muddled
and messy.
They are not clever
nor artful
and are doing me no good.

Words
which have always served me
are failing me
so very badly.

Why is that?
Why are my poems for you
worth so little?

Perhaps
I can answer that question
through dance.

Hey.
I talked it over with my girlfriend
and
believe it or not
she says it’s all right if I sleep
with you.

She’s open minded
and is fine
with an open relationship
– so long as she gets a piece of James
from her office –
which leaves me open for business with you
assuming you’re open to the idea.

I should mention
I’m not into faking orgasms
so you better be real with me
and rest assured
I can guarantee you
a hearty eighty seconds of pleasure
or my name isn’t Jon.

Oh!
Sorry, manners:
my name is Jon.

Once
I had a tie.
I had a place to wear it
I had a lady to help me put it on
and a maid to clean it
when necessary.

I had a shirt
bespoke by tailored hand
and cuff links
that I actually wore on required occasions.
I had all of trappings
all the necessities.

I had a life
rewarding
responsible
rife with opportunity
and now,
there aren’t even remnants
of that experience.

No tie.
No links.
No crisp white shirt
or four hundred K
or anything else
of my earlier days.
I have shed that life
and all those heavy associated words.
All that I was
is gone
and all that is left
is this
and all that I want
is to wear a skirt
one time.

It’s on days like this
that I think of you most:
all the red and pink
and the hearts and flowers
and stuffed unicorns
and candy corns and…
all the sugar.

Everyone is so saccharine to each other
on days like this
calling each other sweetie
or honey
or lamb chop with mint jelly
– it’s all about system overload
the adrenaline rush
and the ensuing high.
It’s so easy
to lose control.

You were always so good
at reining me in
minimizing my consumption
so I ate controlled portions.
You made sure
my Valentine’s Day obsessions
didn’t go overboard.

Now, there’s no one
to stop me from consuming
as much sweetness as I want
this time of year
which makes me sick
and then think of you
on days like this.