

If I am a writer, I need to write. I can claim all that crap about how it gives me life. But right now, I need to write because it is nothing other than therapeutic and is a lesser vice than the other ones calling me into the night.
It is therapeutic. So is music. And I know that a lot of my written rambles will disappear into the trash can of all deleted files on every computer ever. What a pile of leaves that’d be.
I really want to be a novelist, but being a writer is a little different. And it isn’t always awesome that this form of stream-of-conscious typing comes a lot easier. Writing fiction is harder – any writer will tell you.
I don’t know why – other than you need experience, creativity, and clarity to form a story. And those things aren’t always easy to come by.
When life get’s hard, I really would advise to myself to both wait it out, but more importantly do the thing you want to do, that won’t fuck yourself.
Hey, I’ve got a lot to say. All about how it is helpful to have someone believe in you/ your writing. And all the mistakes I’ve made that make it hard to live with myself. And how Sunday nights have always been an optional night for writing a blog post.
And how substitute teaching is optional – how you can back out any night that you’d rather smoke a cigarette and regret it til’ morning. But tonight, I wrote.
We’re not at home, not reliably,
in the interpreted world – Rainer Maria Rilke
My therapist has given me an assignment. I am supposed to write what I yearn for, and how I am going to make it happen. So let’s see. He has a model, but I swear I got so many C’s on assignments in my life because I didn’t follow a format or “respond to the prompt” correctly. So I’m not gonna screw myself by limiting myself by not doing it the way I envision it.
I yearn to write.
I yearn to love.
I yearn to be happy.
I yearn to be funny.
I yearn to love.
Let’s not complicate the fundamentals of life. That is all I want. There is a guy I know who says he feels the most powerful when he makes his wife laugh. This coming from a crooked, broken individual – as we all are. Makes me smile.
Of course I would like to support myself financially and the way I am going to do that is by being a teacher. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Would I rather be in my underwear, sleeping until 1 pm, writing a word a day? Sometimes. But most days, if I can bring myself to wake up, I’m just so happy to be in a school. It is aligned with my values. I’m kinda sad that I’m not that type of writer who dedicates himself only to the craft, day and night – as I wrote a very good novel with this method – and I have worries that because of this I won’t reach my fullest potential with the english language, however, it might be just as important to reach the fullest poetential of my soul.
I yearn to write something that will help someone transcend the pain of life. I forget this quite often, because I think I want to write books that will get girls to like me. That’s not to say that those romanticized narratives aren’t sometimes important or won’t help someone. I think they do. They sure help (ed) me.
I want to escape the pain of life! Am I the only one who is miserable here? I seriously have exhausted a lot of the proximate options of daily life – take a walk, watch porn, (don’t) smoke, candy, run, get food, go out, watch a movie, read a book, maybe paint or write. I mean, my alternative is Walk to New York, Bike to California, or Motorcycle across South America! I am trying to find the middle way of those two philosophies of life, but it sure does get hard when the solution for my problems often come down to getting a hotdog again. Maybe I should just walk off.
The point is, I think that there will always be an underlying sadness to life. However, I think that it is possible to change my life to make my direct options enjoyable, and build my core belief system and thoughts on a positive plane. I haven’t done it entirely yet, but! I do have more good days than bad days. And the things I have done to achieve this inner strength has been therapy, exercise, hydration, support groups, sobriety, a lot of writing, and trying to abstain from other indulgences – bed on time doesn’t hurt.
What do I yearn for? I yearn to tell people that life is possible. I want the next person who comes along on this earth to know that they can face their problems and do the things they want/need. I want to show them by my own actions.
I yearn to write the longest most beautiful book ever written about the redemptive qualities of love. So I need to Motorcycle across South America. So I will Take motorcycle lessons and learn Spanish.
I yearn to motorcycle across South America so that I can banish the fears of people that look different from you – from both sides.
I yearn to go on a road trip across Europe with my best friend and explore any underlying emotions of our relationship so I won’t have unanswered questions. I love him, and I yearn to be unafraid of all forms of love and beauty.
I yearn to sail around the oceans in a sailboat alone. So that I can be alone with the world, respect that it can end my life with the blow of the wind, and learn its secrets.
I yearn to fly around the earth in a plane, to show that man can conquer the earth.
I yearn to tell the girl I love, I love her. I always will.
I yearn to get married, have a family, and a nice home.
How will I do all this? I have my ways. But these are written in an order. So I do them as I become ready to do them.
But one last thing I also yearn, I yearn to tell someone that it’s ok that things change, and life may come and you/I won’t be able to do everything written in The Book of Benjamin Bonkoske, and I was happy, fulfilled, and free in every way.

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 wrote his own major at the University of North Carolina, Asheville focusing on Racial Tension in America. He attended Northeastern, Illinois University where he earned a Masters of Arts in Secondary Education. He lives in Chicago, where he likes to take walks.
B. A, M.A.T.
Bencbon@gmail.com
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