Ben Bonkoske

Poet Without a Pen

Ben Bonkoske

  • Day/Knight 4

    My biggest fear, from long ago, was the idea of not being the only one in a closed loving relationship. Fears change. I’ve learned that not all relationships are only a one (two) way highway that goes only into the sunset. People need other people than just one person to define their whole life’s purpose. That all being said, don’t be that asshole who is imposing on someone else’s love story.

    Other than the first sentence, or part of a sentence – known as its morphology – when I sit down and burst my words onto the page for the evening, there is no preparation, save for a morning run and a nap. Maybe some chips and salsa if I am lucky, but today I had to rely on chocolate. I always say that the indication of if I am doing well in life is if there is giardiniera in my fridge. You can determine this state of my affairs from either this here blog post, or feel free to explore everything from January 13th to today.

    Someone I know once renounced their graduate program, storming out, screaming, “you are either the smartest people I know, or the stupidest people I know.” I have a lot of conflicting beliefs when it comes to intelligence, and what it entails for a person to be “intelligent.” For me, for whatever twisted traumatic high school reason – I really just think it boils down to what college you attended/finished at. However, by my age, it really should come down to how much money you have and what car you drive – right? I don’t know what being smart is if it ain’t just being happy. But, well, first off, I intended this paragraph to inform you that I am probably the smartest stupid person I know. The problem, is I just ain’t know that many smart folk. Maybe you do. However, what has just come up, or has been discovered through the act of writing is that – in a deep sleep while I was time traveling out of bounds and had to be returned back to my own time zone, I was talking with the man who came to my rescue. He told me all that is important is the woman you marry. That’s all intelligence should ever amount to for a man. A good woman. Or man.

    Now, maybe women can never be happy, but I don’t think so. I just think it’s a lot harder to be happy these days – not sure why. I think it’s the internet warping everyone’s perspective and hijacking everyone’s reward systems, and showing us the whole world without us ever seeing it. I think happiness depends on each individual, but you can never be happy alone – not in the end. Maybe I’m wrong. And with my fears, sometimes I’m wrong about what I’m afraid is true, my faults.

  • Typewriter Tuesday 3/19/24

  • Monday Night Poetry 3/18/24

    I Believe by Mia Winhertt

    I believe There’s more in me Than I’ve ever seen, Than I’ve ever done, Than I know. I believe There’s more in you Than you let show, Than you let be …

    I Believe

  • just keep waiting. just keep writing.

    I don’t know if you caught it out your Chicago window, but all at once, it began snowing. After my brisk bike ride in which my Airpods died! (The funeral will be on Monday), I decided I would treat myself to a berga from America’s favorite restaurant. Just so you know, unless I’m being a vegetarian, I usually don’t just have just one burger. But The Burger Establishment closed at Ten. My phone read 22:00. So I walked to the drive-in and stood at the speaker for a cold few seconds. And so, the moral is, there are still things I can not do without a car. But the snow was nice and I live in a city where there was an alternative about 500 feet away.

    I think a lot and I’ve been thinking a lot. But today I purged all my fears. I wonder what percentage of my thoughts resort to fears I have. I had 83 fundamental fears. When I was sharing all this to someone, my body got really tense, and anxious, and it was evident that I unawarely carry a lot of pain in my body all the time. I don’t know how to release it, but when I run, I often find myself crying, and I think that it is just me releasing all the fuck shit.

    I don’t think I’ve run in a week. Been smoking. And you know, you’re supposed to have a reason as to why you don’t smoke, and get up, and eat healthy, and write. And everyone in my circles tells me that that reason has to be God.

    And I do believe there is a God. But that doesn’t always mean you have to believe in God. Or rather you don’t have to rely soley on God as the thing that makes life meaningful. Because, like a lot of other entities, God isn’t always there. Like he is, in our hearts, but it’s/He’s not exactly there there. It’s just a hope that something is there.

    I think it is kind of juvenile, to be so codependent on something that I feel like my whole philosophy is that if I do good, and am a good boy, and punish myself to be happy, I might get what I want, but it won’t be what I really want, and I’m sure to be miserable again, because nothing is ever good enough, but I’ll have God, and that will be enough.

    I’m not renouncing God, or dissing Him/Her. But don’t you think that maybe he’d want you to have meaning in your life from things that are not just um, like pain?

    And thank God we have Buddah, who let’s us know it is all pain.

    And the Lumineers to sing to us that “It’s better to feel pain than nothing at all.”

    And I’ve been super numb for the past 125 cigarettes. And I’m happy to continue the journey of self-acceptance/improvement and not be living in indulgent devil schtick. But I don’t know exactly why/if I will. 🐺

    P.S Books/Writing have always been the thing that really helps, when everything else leaves, and I’m with something that loves me unconditionally. Even when I don’t read. It’s always there, for me.

  • An explanation

    once you are giving an explanation for your life, it’s over.

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.