jonberger

I was just thinking about what you said last Tuesday:
how you’re lonely
scared
wondering if anyone
will ever love you again.

I just want to let you know
if you were so inclined
I’d go on a date with you.

Hell, yeah.
I would date the Hell out of you.
I’d bring you flowers
candy
steaks from assorted nations
Whatever you want.
I’d give you the business!

I understand where you’re coming from,
what he did to you
and how you’re feeling
ever so skittish
now
in the wake of Wesley.
But they all say
when you fall off the horse
you’ve got a get back in the saddle
and I think we’d both enjoy the ride.

I’d love to date you
to show you a good time or nine
in the aftermath of your affair.
I can provide the affection
the attention that you lack.
I’m here for you
if you like.

This offer won’t be available forever,
of course.
Just until you take me up on it.

So
this is it, then?
Fine.
I guess we both knew this would happen
at some point
We two aren’t death nor taxes, are we?

You can’t blame me, though,
for how it all went down.
I’m not the cause of it all.
I think we can both agree
it’s you who started it.
Really?
You really need me to go through this exercise
and prove how you got us where we are?
You can’t admit it?
Whatever.

It wasn’t me that approached you.
I was sitting on that bench
writing in that notebook
and you plopped down next to me,
barefoot like you always seemed to me.
You were the one who asked why I was staring.
You were the one who encouraged me to join your pic-a-nic.
You were the one who walked me home
then asked me to walk you home
then led me to the park again
and kept me occupied for the next sixteen hours
and the following nineteen months.

You distracted me.
You absorbed me.
You complemented and completed me
and,
when you wondered why I wasn’t passing classes
or getting my bills paid
or why I didn’t have any new stories
because you had heard all my old ones
and was the star of all my new ones,
that’s when you said I needed to expand my horizons.

Don’t you get it?
I didn’t build this thing
and I didn’t tear it down.
I would never have been able
to introduce myself
never could have dared
to occupy your time
the way you occupied my soul.

I take no responsibility for this cataclysm.
It’s your fault.
You gave me this taste
and now that I’m addicted
you’re taking it away?
Really?
FUCK!

I get it.
It’s time
we
moved on.
It’s time
you
find someone
worthy
It’s fine.
But it
none of it
is my fault.

Barry Manilow has come out as gay.
In other news, Jon Berger is bald.
In other news, Orson Welles is rumored to like a steak or eight.
In other news, Republicans lie,
soldiers die,
and poverty
is as American as apple pie.

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have each publicly reiterated Harrison’s claim
that the Beatles will not get back nor come together
so long as Lennon remains dead.
In other news, Michael Jackson sang black and white
was black and white
was not put into the back of a black and white
for allegedly dating kids who were black
and white.
Zombie Lennon, meanwhile, has yet to arrive.

Marvel Studios has declared they will continue to make the same comic book movies
until the public stops paying to see them.
In other News, Huey Lewis has gone solo.
Also Dewey.
And Hong Kong Fooey is off the air!

Recent studies show that the news is not vetted
nor verified;
not necessarily true,
even as the news staff sees it.
The news has become cynical
commercial
false.

In other news,
the sun continues to rise
and Hemingway continues to be dead.

I should have fucked you last night.
I should have finished the bottle
walked you past the bushes
into the woods
shoved you against a tree
and made rough love to you
to the beat of the night
intense experiences knocking hard against each other.

I should have given you the old what for,
a jolly rogering.
I should have thrown caution to the wind,
words out the window
and done the animal thing
threatening my evolved self
and state’s laws
while our bodies communicated
in their own ways.
I should have fucked you.

I should have touched you.
I shouldn’t have listened to doubts.
I should have killed them.
I should have done it
– done you –
done the reckless thing
the dangerous thing
because if I did
had I taken you back to my room last night
and fucked you
I could right now
still be holding you
for hours more to come.

I see you
full of hope
joy and energy
and I see one
who sees the glass
as half full.
I see a life
waiting to live.

I see potential.
I see bounds and bursts
of electric will
pacing just before exploding.

I see the future
as a road of gold
twisting to your desires.
I see a radiant sun
hiding jewels
that you are soon to find.

I see much more
then I thought I could imagine
or wish.
Your youth and vigor
make me want to kill myself
and then you
shortly after.

Please stop
with your potential.
Just disappear
for a while
and give me more time to wallow.

I am losing…
things.
Words.
I am losing words.
I am
with increasing regularity
losing ideas,
ideas that used to be dear
that used to power me.

I am growing
weaker, mentally
unable to recall the simple
the elegant
the personal.
More and more
I am becoming
a creature less and less.

I forget phrases.
I miss steps.
I misspeak.
I mistake friends for family
and family for fiends.
I am unused to so much more
than before.

Something has happened.
Something indecipherable.
Something unable to be described.

I have become
slim?
Is that the right word?
I cannot recall.

So what do you do?
the rabbi asks me at the Eat N Greet.

You know, I respond,
popping some croissant in my mouth,
I don’t remember.
If not for work, she says,
what do you do for fun?
That may be harder
to get to the bottom of,
was my answer
but she looked at me
quietly, patiently.

Eventually,
I offered,
I write.
I dance.
I move to the beat
of a drummer I do not know
or understand
or often,
even appreciate.
The rabbi nodded
as if she got
what I was getting at.
Why do you do it?
said she,
do you believe in the drummer?

I do not, I explained,
and offered
I do not know
why I like the things I like
and I don’t know
if there is anything greater than me
– than we –
but I do know
now
that I appreciate many things.

As do I,
the rabbi said,
nibbling on shrimp toast,
and I thank you for your answers.
You’re welcome?
I replied
with more questions myself
than I had before.

I think of you
sometimes
in the room next to mine
and wonder what you might do
in the arms of the night.

I think about
who you hold
silently
in your bed
when I can hear nothing
know nothing
of your fate
in the hours after dark.

I hope
sometimes
when you are alone
in bewitched hours
you hear a sound
and
palm on wall
you reach out
to the closest person
and you wonder if I
too
am alone.

I am.
I sleep in secret fealty
to you
and a banner
I have never acknowledged.

I am ready to protect you
should you ever wish it.

This road means nothing to me.
I have never been here before in my life
and it holds no significance
despite what you seem to intimate.

You can’t intimidate me into
whatever false memories
you want me to retrieve.
This street is not one I know.
This place is nothing.

I will not break down here
as you so clearly want.
I cannot cry on this road
that I have never been
that holds no significance
that means nothing to me
for I have never been here before
in my life

Ever.

He still remembers me
and that’s good.
He remembers most things
most of the time
but
he struggles more.

He has to work harder
for smaller results.
He still walks about the neighborhood
and still asks questions
to the people around him.
But
he introduces himself
to his neighbors of thirty years
and
he doesn’t walk much past a block.

His world is getting smaller
his routines more regimented
his intelligence less flexible.
He is shrinking
while I shirk less responsible.

He appreciates that,
I think,
though he rarely mentions it.
He used to be more appreciative.
He used to remember to be polite.
Now
he remembers what he can.