jonberger

CALLBACK

I should call you back
I know.
I realize that
it takes two to tango
– three, if you count the DJ –
and you’ve been dancing by yourself
for some time.
I owe you a call.

I worry we’d have little to talk about
if we get on the line
– it’s been so long –
and maybe I’ve lost the right to chat
after this much time.
I don’t even know what your schedule is
anymore.

I owe you a response,
I understand that.
You don’t deserve the sticky silence
I’ve provided.
You deserve an answer.
You deserve my picking up the phone for you
unmired by the day to day responsibility and laziness
that keeps us apart.

You have certainly earned the chance
to hear from me directly
so why can’t I pick up the phone?
Stop by?
Use my words?

I don’t know.
I have no answer.

THE KEY

The DELETE button
is a powerful
accidental
key.

It wreaks such destruction
with so little effort.
It is a simple way
to lose everything
with amazing ease

The DELETE key,
of course,
has much power to harm
– far more than it has to heal.

Still
for all its faults
DELETE is not quite so dangerous
as SEND.

STRANGE ODDS

The dream
that told you of your uncle’s death
may not have been premonitive.
You may instead
have been thinking about him
and knowing his health
wasn’t first rate
might have been concerned
and imagined
having to deal
with the consequences.

You may have just had more
ghost peppers
added to your plate
than you were prepared for
and hallucinated
in s coincidentally correct way.
It could be a series of chances
stacked upon each other
that got you
creating his funeral
before the fact
to a T.

But the unerred accuracy?
The means of his exit
and the weather conditions
at the times of year?
How did you know it all?
How did you get it right?

No,
do not succumb
to superstition.
There was no precognition here
only strange odds played out.
It’s all right.
Just don’t ever dream about me, OK?

THE BREAKS

I think I have found a way to blame you.
When we go out to dinner
or the movies
or a bar
you never bring enough
of your hot girlfriends
to distract me
from what you wear
how you dress
the way you wink.

You do not provide
enough fodder for my fantasies
other than your shape
and smile
your spirited style
your high heeled click
as we walk for miles.

I need something
something more
than you
if I am to think of anything
other than you
and you
are not helping.

See?
How many times
did I just say "you?"
It’s not like you’re Asian
or something,
so it ain’t your name.
It’s your very identity
– the only other I imagine
in your presence
or without it.
You are too much of what
I think about
and, so far,
nothing has been able
to help me break the spell.
It’s clear I don’t have the will,
or any way
to do this deed.

But I have faith in you
and so many parts of your personality.
You can help me quit this addiction
if you wanted to.
You have that power
unless
you’d rather
that I instead succumb to it.

SATURNALIA

My assistant just
bent me over the desk
and disciplined me
within an inch of exhaustion.
She explained how
my performance
was not entirely satisfactory
and then did something about it
that I will never forget
but will likely
never be able to repeat.

I like this one.
She continues to surprise me;
the thing last week with the bagels?
I do love those roll reversals
even if she acts a little wholier than thou,
she shows who’s the boss.

And after a long
hard day
of working for the man
who doesn’t want to
expend their energy
in alternative pursuits?
I appreciate it
that she occasionally
shows me my place
and will be sure to praise her
at our next review.

FATED

We have something in common
I sense
or something complementary
or just something between us.
See it
as I do.

You want to help
and I have been hurt.
You have the need to heal
while there is no one
more broken than I.
I was born this way
and trained from an early age
to suck up the suffering
and act like it’s all right.

I’ve been waiting forever
for someone to uncover the truth.
I’ve been waiting forever
for someone to take care of me.

Do you feel it?
Do you see
how we were made
to be here
today?
Are you aware
as I am
how we
were meant to be?

THE LIGHTS FLUORESCENT

On my last day
in a temporary position
in an office I hate
I have taken a four hour lunch
three mugs of aspirin
two reams of paper
and somebody’s iPod.

I did not want to be here in the first place
and this will ensure
that I never be invited back
where the pay is bad,
the coffee weak
and the lights fluorescent.

Surely,
I will miss the eight fifty an hour
the place to go after spotting dawn,
but was it worth it
to lose such substantial
segments of my soul?

Nope.
I’m out of this place
leaving a CV
of smeared feces
in case HR needs to reach me again.

I will return
if you invite me
so don’t.

ADMISSIONS AND EXIT INTERVIEWS

This may very well be the worst thing
I have ever done
but
is it what I’ve done today
or the lie that I’ve lived too long,
now exposed?
May others judge me
I just need to get free.

I don’t love you anymore;
I may never have.
I am divorced from your attentions
and have been
for too long.
I’m moving out
and I’ve moved on.

The things I need to say
are not the things you’ve needed to hear
but that makes them no less true.
It’s time for goodbyes.
It’s been time
for eternities
and
if you don’t see the truth in it today
it should all become frighteningly clear
when you hear the rest.

Apologies to Alison:
The things I did to you
were unconscionable
and, in retrospect,
embarrassingly obvious.
Pulling your pigtails
chasing your skirt
smacking your legs with my ruler…
deducing my purpose
was elementary, Watson.

You shouted once:
“Mommy says you act like this because you LUHV me!”
and I said,
“You call your mother ‘Mommy?'”
and tried to peek down your shirt
I don’t know why.
I was too young
to know what I was looking for
too immature
to have any of those mature thoughts.

I was completely unable to express
the yearnings I had
to be in your presence
and learn more about you.

I was cruel.
I was cold.
I was curt
when all I longed for
was for you
to warm up to me.

Now,
I know better
how to treat a lady.
I understand so much
that was beyond me
for so long.
I am prepared
years later
to earn your attention.
Now, finally,
I realize
what a girl like you
deserves:
is twelve dollars enough?