Ben Bonkoske

Poet Without a Pen

Ben Bonkoske

  • Thursday? This way!

    I recall once hearing a drummer say that two weeks without practicing made him rusty. I tried to bless myself with a little typewriter typing, but it became evident that I lacked the cohesive composure to type tightly after two days without public writing. Plus, they were smoking and playing dominos on the train tonight.

    It’s been said to marry – because if you marry a good woman you will be happy, and if you chose poorly, you will become a philosopher. My oh my. How I would gather all this nonsense information to dissect like a live frog in front of everyone every week. I think the worst thing about me is that I expect people to treat me differently than I treat them, and then I blame them for however they treat me. I don’t always blame them, but I disregard them, for sure. I’d die if my ex wrote about me.

    Part I:

    I take my writing too seriously and it makes me super butt hurt when I read everyone I find IRL. Maybe I don’t give them enough credit, or time to digest their vomited words. But it is a let down. However, I’m happy in my corner – literally writing this in a gloried closet I’ve turned into my “office” alike Ocean Voung whom I have mutual hate with. But ya know, Stephen, and Ray, and Cormac, Penisbrain, and Whitebeard all wrote by themselves. But I’m unsure if they got a whole lot better – they just wrote more. I’d hope to get better. And I guess I have the next years.

    “Practice” makes perfect. But so does other stuff, like people.

    Writing is just about knowing where to make the cut. And then, how to cut. I hope that doesn’t insinuate that every word is an attack, but instead a dexterous revival of someone’s health.

    And it’s about time I take some risks with my writing. I think the main issue I have with all the writing I read, is it is so damn similar. The stories might be a little different, but it sure feels derivative. And I ain’t found my perfect voice neither (late onset regret of living in the south, tis not a classy voice). But I sure hope we all don’t become droning vocalists of the written word, saying all the same things in different ways with the same words. Let’s make sure to read some humans.

    And that is part one of my update. I have been so fixated on how I think the world is supposed to look, look, act, be, act, and appear, or sound, and all that psychological shit. I know I’ve said it’s ok to be human, but like I really see what a Clockwork Orange is. It is a person who appears to be a human, but is a wind up toy by God or the Government. I was one. Chillax doesn’t sum it all up, but I’m breaking my own constitution.

    Starting with reading David Foster Wallace’s novel The Broom of the System. I’ve been wanting to read it for three years now, but I’ve been punishing myself by reading “the classics” like that is how it’s supposed to go. I read maybe five books last year. Because none of them (besides the memoirs! (Memoirs for chrissakes)) I wanted to read. I was reading them to be a spiritual intellectual. So I’m so fucking happy to be reading something I want. God isn’t that what the fuck it’s supposed to be about? Being an artist etc. Like why the fuck would you hate yourself to make yourself to watch a movie. Let’s see what else I allow myself to do.

    Part II:

    If I have an update on my love philosophy (life) it is a few things: Well, the story is out. The blonde wins!!! Everybody. I see why there can be resentment towards those yellow haired Goldie locks that steal our men. I’ll save you a couple thousand pages, but “I wasn’t strong enough” to not love her. As if that’s what the world deserves as a moral. No, it wasn’t mr. five year old moping.

    The real moral, is, at this time the best I can say, is, we both knew we were wrong for each other, but she was strong enough to say it for both of us. And it redeems a lot. I’ve been deep down in some pit of hell, propagated by the media and Taylor Swift that every relationship ends with trying to get back at the other person with a diss album or revenge porn or whatever, but hey, I loved that girl. And she ended up being a good person. Who didn’t just break my heart because she could. You’re up to bat.

    (write and release)

  • Love exists

    A fear of mine is that someday I will dry up and have nothing left to say next week. I know somethings sound cliche, but I am amazed once and a while. I know it doesn’t always feel like the universe is aligned in some universal time schedule, (but everyone I text seems to knows all about numbers and their implied meanings), but I do think there is some kind of…timing that takes place in a bigger picture. Turned 27

    I’m a wordsmith stuck in a numbers world. I’m sure a mathematician feels the universe is inverse to that notion.

    Somewhere along the line, I renounced God. It hurt a little too much for a little too long. The story of Job is in the Bible for a reason. I don’t think that you just get to be worthy of a man in the bible just for being born. But, I think I am loved regardless of being human. I lost faith. Although I betrayed God, God did not betray me. And in God-like fashion, he returns to save the day.

    I feel like I’ve been in purgatory for the past five years.

    Also known as the waiting place. I was so confused. And I think that I was stuck in between moving on and holding on. I don’t think that doing either is necessarily a sign of strength, especially if you don’t know what the right answer is. But I do think that, at some time, if you are looking long enough, hopefully you will find your way to today. Only to see a few years have passed without drawing an organic breath.

    I was in so much pain. I probably will be again, but if I know anything, it is to find myself when I lose the plot (says the guy who has been missing for 5 years!)

    And there is a reason I haven’t celebrated my birthday since I was 18. I don’t think I was alive. In the real sense of the term – when you aren’t constantly preoccupied with somethings.

    I can breathe.

    And I shouldn’t just breath for myself when there is a genocide happening right now. I need to wake up and fight where there is a need. I’ll be teaching kids some humanitarian values tomorrow about the Venezuelan migrants. Maybe I should do some research. Just do what I can.

    I don’t know what the future holds. I’m not even sure I know half of my past. I don’t know who I am. But I am. I look forward. I’ll look back. Tonight is a smile. Tomorrow is a frown. And I’ll miss the eclipse in my own right, but I’m so thankful I didn’t end my life in that deserted time period,

    ps. there will be a proper apology someday, but thank you so much, with LOVE

  • Typewriter Thursday 4/4/24

  • birth bath

    I’ve had so many ideas about what I need to say the last few (two) days. It is wonderful the amount of thoughts that drive on my mental highway. We all just hope there isn’t an accident.

    Since I have nowhere to start – let’s start with a little self-pity. 🙂

    I haven’t celebrated my birthday in 9 years. I think that’s all. Oh. Tomorrow is my birthday. YIPPIE! Hopefully some people call.

    Last night, I read an entire book titled Alan Carr’s Easyway to Quit Smoking. You are allowed to read it while you smoke (haha, see what I did there). But I was done. I’ve been done for 10 years. I’ve lost 10 years of my life to cigarettes. Three that were supposed to be good. And 4 others. But last night, I finally read something that helped reveal why I will no longer be smoking, and why it will be easy – instead of the eighteen months I spent white-knuckling my willpower to not smoke.

    This all being said, I’m resetting my sobriety date. I don’t care what other people say. I have not been sober these past three months. April 3rd, 2024. That’s my date. It means something to ME. Not all the other girl’s birthday’s I’ve “quit.” My last cigarette was this morning after I finished the book (You are encouraged to have your last cigarette after reading the book), but I’ll go by the 3rd.

    :

    In another post titled “Still Thinking” I referred to myself as a butterfly. Someone (an old caterpillar) told me that 27 is the year that you either figure it out, or you don’t. So unless I just figured it all out last night thanks to Alan Carr, it’s about time I understand everything. That being said, I’d like to amend my statement. I am not an entire butterfly. I am a caterpillar with wings. I am this caterpillar –

    Side note – I’m listening to The Black Keys and I should give Ryan N. a call tomorrow (my birthday). So yes, my birthday is really just a good excuse to call the people you don’t get to talk with often enough.

    I had some impending blog post about the nervous system and how it is related to love. How who we think we love is just the person which has the deepest nervous system’s reaction based on either joy, sex, laughter, pain, or the chemical of feeling understood. It’s a losing battle when you are not recreating those neural pathways with someone, especially when they are creating new ones with someone else. I write to stay alive in their minds. But you know, muscles atrophy in everyone if not worked out. People forget, ideas vanish, and I don’t care about dying for someone that never loved me either. But when I write that I’ll never be back again, that little fear in their heart, makes them know they love me.

    Oh, and last but not least, on my gratitude list, the last thing I wrote was this other things not called God but is the crappy conversation with the universe. The name of this entity is IT. I read the book, and I’ve got to remember my fears are just a little bitch demon that scares me.

    .

  • byby

    Before I get into all sorts of human behavior, etc. I’ll try to open with this sentiment, that is fleeting, as do all good things when I think too much – even in Gods’ virtue.

    The first thing is, I’ll try not to break the fourth wall, and start addressing the reader. Hopefully all things can be said in vague references, outside of any personal anecdotes that would incriminate anyone.

    But that is what I’d secondly like to talk about. I write. I will write. Whether in my journal, or on another blog, or in my books. I’ve got to. I’d float away if I stopped writing. You’d never see me again.

    But that being said, I really ought to try and refrain from writing things that may do anyone psychological damage, emotional harm, or cause spiritual existentialism.

    Last night was the first time I thought of a poem, and didn’t write it because, although it might be well understood, I knew it would help no one. It would only affirm our despairs – and therefore perhaps normalize it through poetry. So I did not write what I had to say.

    And I’ll work to not write things that are upsetting, confusing, or build conflict. It’s disrespectful. However, if you were unlucky enough to see Typewriter Thursday, you can see that my intention of “slowing down” by writing with a typewriter, flew out the window that evening (I had somewhere to be).

    :

    You want the want. When someone knows they can have someone, they become less interested because the yearn for them isn’t circumstantially conditional.

    “Love” is conditional. It depends on a lot of things. If it didn’t, homely homeless people would be with rich supermodels.

    I have been raised with the idea that I am always doing something wrong. Everything I do deserves some sort of punishment in my belief system. Sometimes I do things wrong. We all do. But not everything I do is wrong, nor deserves insult. Because of this notion, I rarely accurately know if what I do is wrong or not. I think the good things I do are bad.

    Further, I believe that everyone’s response to whatever I do, is punitive, or has a malicious intent – which is also not always the case.

    Let’s look at some other complexes which accompany this:

    On one side of the coin, you usually have someone who does not want to be responsible for someone who is a liability.

    On the other side of the coin, you have someone who is afraid of getting close, of being vulnerable, lest they become dependent on the other person (who is likely to abandon them).

    I fall into the latter, but have a bit of both, as most would.

    My current conflict is navigating between trying to stay reliable for both myself, and someone else. I understand that this person has no obligation to me. Therefore it is unhealthy to entertain this fantasy, for both myself and them, because it creates a false reality which both of us appear dependent, which we are not.

    I “should” be trying to explore other options to move on as a sign of a healthy progression in life, and to not do so, only confirms this false dependency. But I punish myself when I don’t abide with loyalty to this other person.

    And if I get vulnerable, my alternative method is to run.

    But inability to rationalize that I am not beholden to this person, and neither are they, either confirms a fear of being vulnerable with others, or unhealthy dependence.

    So well, although I think that God/people/life are punishing, I don’t think I should blame myself for feeling this way, and being at this crossroads. I’m just trying to explain my side of the story in a way I know how, which is writing to strangers on the internet with one outlier.

    The solution awaits. Tune in next Tuesday.

    Ps.

    It was Easter today. 1 year away from the end of the curse. I didn’t get up until 13:43. Night Terrors all night. I was supposed to go to church. I was supposed to be ready to swoon by noon. But I’m trying really hard, to just not be mad at myself for not having anything to have been accountable for for a while. I am happy as a general rule.

    ,

Ben Bonkoske is the author of two novels, Spoon in the Road, and Carolina, Colorado, California. He is also the author of two collections of short stories, Ten Zen by Ben, and Eleven Stories for 11:11. He lives in Chicago, where he likes to take walks.

B. A, M.A.T.