Ben Bonkoske

I’m dripping wet. Cold shower #7. I’m in heaven. An unavoidable headache after five minutes of vigorous lovemaking. I’m shaking. Cold as Jack Frost. I’m lost and it’s my own damn fault. I laugh because on paper I am probably one of the most unsuccessful people I know when it comes to comparisons. TO COMPARE IS TO DESPAIR. But, I can’t even talk with my best friend without the phone call ending on some awkward note that he knows I’m a jack off (Even when I know I’m not, but he doesn’t and you don’t). I don’t know how I’ve been afforded such a self-beneficial degenerate lifestyle for as long as I’ve lived. The hardest job I’ve ever held was selling weenies down at the beach! But, (apart from some tragedies that make life worth living) I’m relatively happy. I am happy to be WHO I am, but not WHAT I am. A 23-year-old young man (who is not getting any younger) living with his parents, unemployed, clinging onto the illusion that I am a writer that will someday be recognized (when all my life I’ve been nothing but criticized), taking cold showers and abstaining from masturbating, dry, relatively unattractive (besides from men, who, sorry, need not apply) and what I imagine everyone would imagine as bitter. But, it could be so much worse. Goddamnit, I am happy. with myself, most days, not always, but often enough to only complain to my ragdoll occasionally. I can’t remember a time when I felt so good about myself and my prospects since I was class president (that sentence took a lot of practice). I don’t need the world, or you, to tell me who I am, what I am worth, why I write. I hate to say it, but I love writing more than everything, anyone, except maybe God (just because I have a healthy fear of balding). He cuts me breaks when I start internally screaming “I’m dead inside,” but sad or happy, I’ve found one thing that gives back to me regardless of how needy I am, ugly, unfaithful, bad at it, and weak. It heals me like love is meant to be, even when I hate it. And I love you. I love you, too. And I would have burned my first book for you. But, I never felt enough. Enough as in, equal. I needs a good hug. Sometimes I sits and I thinks, but most I just sits – Neal Cassady. I’ve fallen in love with a man in a book. I’ve fallen in love with the words and the way the world is described by a book. Your face is more beautiful. But words never age. Or if they do, like beauty, it is like a fine wine. And I don’t think anything gold can stay. If I was a child, I would run all the way home to you, but we must eventually move over for the things we always said were important. Piano. New York. Children. I can’t give it all up because of someone. I’m not that person, for you, or anyone. I AM that person. And you know I’ll never be strong enough to walk away from love once lived, saving up kisses for a rainy day. That’s all I want. That’s all we need. A hug and a kiss, but goddamnit I am happy being so much less than what everyone expected of me. It hurts so deep, but the difference is I see clearly. I don’t doubt the intelligence, pursuance of the arts, financial security, and every other possible way that everyone else towers over me, but…I forgot my point.