Ben Bonkoske

Just a poet without a pen

Ben Bonkoske

  • The dedication

    “Actors fall into this trap if they missed being loved for who they really were and not for what they could do – sing, dance, joke about – then they take that as love.” – Gene Wilder.

    I personally take this quote to say – People can conflate what they do, for who they are. They think people will love them for what they’ve done, rather than for who they are. I don’t think we see ourselves for what we really are.

    One of my greatest fatal flaws is that I have a very inaccurate depiction of how the world sees me. Inaccurate meaning, clouded, rather that incorrect. I don’t think I am a Hawiian basketball player…but I might believe I could become one.

    Perhaps the people I write this for, could sum me up in a few sentences, and then they shut up about me. I personally think that I am not someone who can be summed up in a few sentences, and maybe that upsets people subconsciously.

    I will admit, that I haven’t taken the time out of my heart to really try and sum up or explain many other peer’s complexes and why they are the way they are. I’d like to, if given the chance, but it seems like the world and I have a mutual agreement to stay a wide berth apart. I don’t involve myself in other’s personal business uninvited anymore.

    Sometimes I am discouraged by people. I’m waiting to die of embarrassment that I ever thought I was ahead of anyone. This article is not about how everyone lets me down with their pretentious insignificant contributions to society. It is more about the oversaturation of my important intelligent influence on the earth.

    Speaking of alliteration with the letter I, I may have mentioned it before, but I do believe I have a pretty low IQ. Everything comes easier to other people. Although, I, through diligent persistence, am relatively happy at age 26. About 4 years ahead of my projected schedule.

    Anyways, I don’t think I’m unique in saying that I have used art as a platform for communication. Writing my books, and singing my songs, and being the funniest handsomest man in the room all the time, is all just a way of hiding the fact that I don’t know who I am, and I’d like someone else to help me find out what those qualities are that make me myself.

    I mentioned that my anima seems to have run its course in my previous post. Although not entirely finished, in a sense, I think what my latest hurdle has become is that with this little hole in my philosophy that took up the past miserable 13 years of my life, one has to kinda sketch a new idea of what a relationship looks like.

    My therapist has been a good start. And I like hanging out with my man friends who are on the spectrum because they don’t question bullshit like sexuality. And there other people, too.

    There is a subtle a feeling of hoping they’d all do and be better (and the others be kinder). I must be in the wrong class, city, and social circles – which is likely because all it takes is walking into one wrong room and the smartest man at 26 become Dostoevsky’s Idiot pretty quick.

    Please take all this with a grain of salt. It feels good to just share my thoughts of navigating life as it unfolds. I’m happy with who I am. I want to be loved for that, not for any conditions around my name (but boy, who care’s about creative outlets if they don’t make you rich and famous). And maybe the other side of that is looking at others for once.

    Aside from some hiccups that naturally occur from too much seltzer water and a reintroduction of meat in my diet, writing and as much is seeing progress, yet not perfection. The trigger days seem to move around, but as a general rule of thumb, Thursday nights have been unreasonably difficult as of late. My conclusion is that either in college the weekend started on said eve, or when I was working my tail off, Thursday night was enough of a week’s good work to unwind. But waiting the 72 hours to see if I will get to go back to school, sometimes it can feel like a wasted effort.

    Last but not least, bizarre dreams as of late. It’s poor form to talk of dreams, but very, very disturbing. I’m afraid to go to bed. I was stuck in purgatory and I’m not going to lie like it felt like 6 months, but it felt like Midnight until 3 Am the following day. I don’t want to talk about it. Well, I do, but with, you know. It seems like since I am not stressed in waking life, hell is on the other side.

  • Monday Night Poetry 1/8/24

  • Less Than Zero – Book Review

    Plot does not make the novel. People within it do. Just because you can remember the names of some characters in a book, doesn’t mean they are fleshed out. But knowing them still, says something.

    Bret Easton Ellis wrote this book when he was 19 and it was published when he was 21. There are many imperfections in this book, and runny sentences. But the dialogue, characters, and conflicts are solid. I felt the horrible human nature of Los Angeles, along with it’s insufficient excessiveness.

    The story follows Clay returning from New Hampshire for Christmas in LA, and there is a lot of snow in California if ya know what I mean. Also, that euphemism found in second independent clause from the previous sentence would be nowhere to be found in the short novel. The main inferiority of the novel is just that Bret Easton Ellis was too young when he wrote it. Although it gives him an advantage that there is something impressive about his writing, he lacks the sculpting of a story that comes with experience and age.

    Aside from trying to be too dark and edgy, the world could always use a book by a 19 year old about a 19 year old, and how fucked the world seems all about us at that age. It really takes itself seriously, which what any young writer deserves to think about their work. It is written in the present perfect. “I sit in the sun and light a cigarette and try to calm down.” This pushes the novel forward and allows for you to be immersed and feel like you are at the party.

    You read on. I wasn’t compelled or moved, but I read it and I liked it. It read like a movie. It actually does what Hemingway was trying to do. I can’t picture everything, but I am there. Every sentence hurts. That doesn’t mean they are all meaningful, but they feel important.

  • Watch Me Die Inside

    Subscribe to continue reading

    Become a paid subscriber to get access to the rest of this post and other exclusive content.

  • 2 hrs 24 mins

    On the last day of last year, I recognized a pattern of two camps. People who were to go out, and people who were to stay in. Because I tend to only go out roughly 100 times in most given years, I thought I’d get outside of my comfort zone. And boy will I tell ya, I still think I can dance.

    Of course I was home by roughly 1 because I don’t afterparty the way I used to. Gosh, elderly old me in my mid-twenties. But at least I wasn’t in bed by 11:30. When I got home I began my annual bewitching hour reflection on year past. There is something of an empty feeling after being with a hundred people, and that night being no different than the other 363.

    I will relay some of my anecdotes, although I will preface that this one was roughly 1/3 shorter than my usual yowling at the moon:

    An insignificant existence looms in my room that has been empty except for one occupant for the past whenever and will be until the next whenever.

    I write a lot about how beautiful the language is of those who die prior to the afterparty. An odd thing to aspire to. It is not so much that I am complacent with life, although much more so than I was when I was twenty-three.

    People can say they don’t care what people think until the cow comes home or the crow comes to roost, but I do. I wish the world knew me for who I was. I’m more like that nowadays than I’ve been for the past decade. I wished I was loved for who I am.

    My life had meaning in it for about 10 years. It was a woman. It really was. You can’t force love, make someone love you, or love someone you don’t, even if the whole world depends on it. My life lost purpose.

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.

Get in Touch

Bencbon@gmail.com

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly