Something has to be done
and quickly.
Someone has to act
or nothing gets done.
Someone has to make the hard choice
the tough decision
take the ugly option.
Someone has to bite the bullet
take one for the team
just so we can all get on with it
and ask the fat boy to dance.
Charmaine?
This time it’s on you.
Timing is everything.
You can have all the right experiences
the correct natural abilities
but if they are not placed into the necessary situation
at the precise moment
they are required,
well then, where are we?
Where is Michael Jordan,
if he’s born a century early
before his sport is invented?
Where is Stephen Hawking
had he been able to beat Lou Gehrig
in naming the disease?
We are all slaves to coincidence
and its absence.
We all wait
for our time to shine
and if the moment is not perfect
then what is the point?
I will stand here
unrelentingly
for that moment
when the building’s revolving door
and its electric turnstile
open at the same time
as the elevator door.
I shall so elegantly arrive at work, then!
The security guard
won’t know what hit her.
For now, though,
I watch
and I wait
in the rain.
I hope there’ll be donuts left
when I finally arrive.
Roosevelt Island is gone.
Queens is gone.
Brooklyn,
the Bronx,
all have disappeared.
As far as the eye can see
there is nothing.
The world is getting smaller.
Existence is fading
in the strangest ways.
From sea to shining sea
all there is
is you and me.
There is nothing else.
We are alone
but
we are together.
I can think of no one better
with whom to spend the apocalypse.
Still
holy fuck
Roosevelt Island is gone!
Don’t close up.
Don’t shut down.
Don’t say “Everything’s OK”
when clearly it’s not.
I can help.
I can take it.
They say sharing a secret halves its impact
or maybe something else.
I’m not that good with expressions
but
the important thing
is not to bottle everything inside.
Tell me what happened.
Tell me how to help.
And even if I can’t help
even if
all your yapping will do
is clear the air
between us
please do.
I prefer clear air anyway.
What happened?
Talk with me.
It was transformative,
the accident
that made me who I am
today.
It defined me
in ways I couldn’t imagine
at the time.
The swagger I had known before?
Gone
as was my effortless way around the boxing ring
and the skating rink.
And my high rankings in gym class?
Like the wind, gone also.
I had to refine my identity
to conform to the crippling injury.
I was recreated in its wake
no longer a scholar
I became an artist
for life proved tempestuous
and who was I
to fly in its face?
My revisionist soul grew and stretched
and expanded into a life
I hadn’t expected
earlier.
I am who I am
because of that bus
and though I wasn’t happy at the time
– and am certainly not happy now –
I am grateful
for I can no longer picture
any other life
than the one I live.
You may call my vision narrow
and solipsistically egotistical
or too prideful by far
but I find
the best subject I can capture
is me.
I could write about me
all day long
and often
I do.
I know me better than any other
and seek to gain further understanding
of my every nook and cranny.
I want to get me.
Really get me.
I want to paint portraits of my magnificence
and debasements
and everything in between.
But it can’t simple be
me on me eternally,
can it?
I must open up.
I need to devote more energy
to allowing others to interpret my actions
and learn how to live
ala Jon.
I have to get you guys
to see what I see in me.
It may not be a pretty picture
but it’s the best shot I have.
I will never bear children
shall never raise them.
I do not have mechanical means
nor the emotional.
I won’t have kids
and I’m all right with that.
I wouldn’t know
what to do with those things;
how to hold them
to heal them
or house train them.
I don’t want kids
so it’s just as well
I can’t have them.
My art will be my babies
my paintings serve as kids.
I will name my stories as I would my child.
and my dances like beautiful girls.
This one is called Patricia.
Come out
little girl
and show everybody
how proud you make me.
Did I hold your hair back?
Honestly, I don’t remember that.
I do remember
how you bent
kneeling before some porcelain goddess
with this flustered muttering fool by your side
for the very first time.
I didn’t know how best to help you
in your illness
after an evening of medicine.
I stayed with you
as you expunged the aspects
that needed to escape.
I offered why comfort I could
and maybe I did hold your hair back
and sponged you off afterwards
and put you to bed eventually
when you felt a bit better.
I may have held your hair
I may not.
It is hard to remember
all these hours later.
Also, we may have fucked.
Tough to say.
I ran.
I fled.
I left that place so quickly
both of our heads spun.
I couldn’t see where I was going,
I moved so fast.
I jumped.
I leapt.
I made my escape
at the first opportunity.
I found a better place to be.
I beat it.
I hit the bricks
I broke out,
I dashed,
I darted,
I traversed.
I found the path of least resistance
and I took it
at maximum velocity.
I scurried.
I was scared.
I was quaking
shaking
breaking free.
I was flying away
looking for a better place to be.
There was no faster way to flee
like if dogs had my tail,
I’d have gone up a tree.
I got out of there.
I got while the gettin’ was good
and got into a new neighborhood.
I looked for another place to call home
I found it
and I moved,
post-haste
tout de suite
rapido, por favor,
RAPIDO!
I came.
I saw you.
You conquered
and I ran
as far away
as I could.
Still…
You know what I hate?
People.
People really burn my bunions.
People are the worst.
If I go out,
and I see people
humans, who have something to say,
with thoughts in their head,
with motherfucking OPINIONS…
it sticks in my craw.
It gestates my goat.
If I see people,
I turn around
and go the other way.
But the trouble with people,
those breeding Homo sapiens,
is that
when you go the other way
they’re there.
Those bipedal mammals are EVERYWHERE
and they are not quiet about it.
Frankly, they’re pretty showy.
They show up everywhere
with their shoes
and their glasses
and Zunes
(we get it. You’re tool-makers.
Get over yourselves!)
and lord over everybody else
with their religion
and extensive pregnancies
and inability to fuel up through photosynthesis
– I hate them.
It’s as simple as that.
But
that’s me.
If you approve of humanity,
that’s your particular bellwether to hoe.
Feel free
but understand this:
If we ever get together,
you are simply not permitted
to ever invite them to my place.
jonberger 