Ben Bonkoske

  • Stop and Go

    Although I have nothing to say, I must have something to write.

    To begin with the mundane – I got a new fridge in my apartment a few months back. It is much louder than the older one. So much so that I just walked across the unit to get a very, very old pair of earplugs. They are orange ones. And have probably have been being used since Covid – with a nice dark brown and blue rim of earwax around the tip. It is due time for a new pair.

    It is due time for a new pair of shoes as well. I have had the same running shoes with a hole in them since Covid (2020) as well, and although I have a very effective pair of minimalist shoes – I suspect they smell more than I am aware- being that I only go barefoot in them. Either that, or today the girl sitting next to me was covering her nose with her shirt because a subtle grime has clung to my skin from spring cleaning yesterday. I blew off the opera to clean (story of my life) and I was up until 3 (the current story…).

    But I have a clean apartment, a quiet mind, and a pair of shoes I have walked a few miles in.

    The first thing as it relates, is that I think I have been lied to by myself that I am in need of a more expensive lifestyle. Good writers, the ones who really, really write, often did so with baked beans (Cormac McCarthy), and a 4 dollar telephone bill (Don Delillo). And here I am, lying to myself that what I really need to be happier or more profound is a new fridge, an outrageously costing vitamin regimen, and new shoes.

    Always the case, that you realize everything to late – and then you get a great opportunity to make a choice. But I took this year to write. Kinda. I said I would substitute so that my mental health would be in a good place and I’d be prepared for the coming year. And it is all true. But, what I didn’t do was what I love.

    Buisness as usual against the heart.

    And I’m to blame today. I’m not sad, or feeling pathetic or anything. It is just a itty bitty resentment at myself that I could’ve done something much more literary this year.

    I think all this amounts to is an old notion that “I’m always living my life for someone else.”

    But isn’t that a good thing? To help children and make your dad proud? I was told it is. And there is no such thing as lying. Especially by the same value-based system that tells me I can buy my way to happiness.

    It’s all dangerous, and I kinda know the right answer for me, but like, I’m not always right.

  • 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

Bencbon@gmail.com

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