Ben Bonkoske

  • zen

    I’m not perfect. There is that unbalanced part of me, that just wants to see my perspective as objective, but I think it does a lot more damage than good. Don’t get me wrong, the world is beautiful, filled with Twilight books, time signatures, and a lot of other magical stuff that is beautiful, but has just become pain. Like rotten milk. The things I love hurt and betrayed me, and it was really just myself inflicting the wound. But that beautiful stuff isn’t going away, and I’m not going away, but there is a point where you have to ask yourself if you are playing the game, or is the game playing you? That obscured part of me wants to think that I’ve lost something – something beautiful, that made me so special and unique, but who wants to die in a world of their own?

    I’m sorry to a lot of people, it was some man shit. But as I’ve said, I just want to write. I don’t want every word to be debilitating and live in some, skewed perspective that just because I overdeveloped an idea, by myself, for too damn long, it is any more significant than some 90’s television or something. It really doesn’t matter what I think if I don’t put it down in words. But most importantly, I’m sorry in advance. I don’t mean to write things that are hurtful, but there are some things I need to say. I have no one. There is no one. Besides a blank page. And I’m so sorry if you don’t get that, but that is what I need.

    I lost, more than I’ll ever know over some things I’ve written, and for that, I apologize, to myself, and her. Sincerely, as sad as it is, and shitty as it is, I really just don’t want to die quietly at 26. I don’t want to blame you for killing me.

  • yesterday

    It is a significant undertaking of being an artist knowing that when you die your art becomes more valuable. Not necessarily if it is all bullshit and all you value is money.

    I live for art. And If I die, let it only make my art more meaningful.

    I am not here to suggest that everything I ever write is gold. In fact, a lot of it is dirt. But the best. part of becoming an artist is just the real struggle of just being so terrible for so long and having to do what everybody else does, being where everyone has been before until you finally break into something personal.

    Love is art.

  • Yell

    With the pulse made from a rhythmic heart on the crescent mooned music-filled city, this extraterrestrial rushed home to tell what he feels. Home is what you make it. You have to make your home by the time you are my age. I feel glimpses of what it meant to me take form from long intervals. No one in between. I’m not out of breath if that impresses anyone. All I want to tell, whether it is just to myself or not, is that I’m trying to write the modern love story. A tragedy I can not foresee. Maybe, because because. But, although my therapist referred to me as crazy and admits he can not help me, and the hundreds of friends I’ve made don’t seem to have any answers – nobody does – I just want to be a good man and an honest writer.

    I’m sorry to think that there aren’t people who see that this life is just an infinite test. I’m sorry to think that because I know there are people with virtues. I know my cardinal. I am not elona in this endevor. If I am to cut any cords, it only prolongs the waiting for unity. I don’t know if I see what I dream of in this life. But I will be as dedicated to my belief until my heart stops beating, I can cry no more, and my words become meaningless. but the fire has not gone out. We are made of stars, and stars burn for billions of years. In ancient Greek mythology, and Hindu stories, men could do whatever they want, and women always had to prove their loyalty. My goal is to reverse this. I can write fiction, but I won’t write lies anymore.

    I will be waiting at the green stage all day for music to my ears.

  • Year one 2

    Dear L.S.,

    One damned proactive thought-provoking overarching art scene, heart of hearing, soul-crushing, no-clothing, unprepared oversharing, inexplicably persnickety city slicker, kiss-her-on-the-lips-til’-it-hurts, Godfather of Indie, detail-unoriented, stoic misogynistic narcissistic, fretful forgetting of the hysterical moaning Myrtle origin story, agenda free weekend pass to he-said-she-said, chores galore, restorative justice filled with lustful kids staring my penis, thinning hair and dairy air, comforting bed-wetting, involuntary-celibate post-cold-war-brewed horny pick up order, am not misbehavin’ frizzle-de-dizzle my nizzle colonization, problematic manly man transqueer tragicomedy, Rainforest Café explosion, trauma-induced coma, insomniac cat-killing, Eraserhead rewatching, unignorable deplorable bulldozing over metropolitan agnostics, divorced daddys, debilitating accusations of not participating with pride, unapologetic poetic painting, orgasmic robotic erotic logic, bunny-eared electric toothbrush, year without a nasty brown-tounged, ugly, wicked, repulsive, miserable, seductive drat ol’ socio-political class determinant, racially oriented liberalist, leftist right-winged educational industrial complex, grade A, lime green rat poison, southern hospitality sweet-tea teeth, cane walking, booty, saltatory salutations to my favorite incensed cockroaches, Oreo almond-milk vegan ice cream, intoxicatingly repressed banana proportions, unchristian crime-inducing, psychosexual boring Californian early retirement, can’t wait to kill myself Cobain self-hatred, enigmatic imaginative black and white inner cry baby, internet binging, Chinatown euphoria, pretentious porn denying, edible without-a-cause, piggy screams until you dream alive, professional artistic mustached morons, green mohawked gentleman, manifesto enforcing membrane deterioration, pre-frontal cortex cunnilingus exploration, fungus selling, sugar-free pity party la croix sex icon, sensitive, sympathetically pathetic boy, crazy weary eyed, tired, misinformed lippy hippy hiding out in academia, neurotic magic, my name is Trey, go find your dad, appointment ignoring, chestnut, impatient patients, lonely morning alone again, leather satchel combover necktie with those shoes, goodie-too-shoes mocktail, taller-than-me sci-fi Parisian, Chef Boyardee Ravioli formula, renaissance woman, spiritually symbiotic synopsis, Roxy’s boobies, weep what you sow, kosher fruit basketcase, labeled stoner loser, library poser, religious reader, greedy sleeper, schmeckle lipstick, powerbottom America, sincerely insincere, good-looking deflowered inbred, one-too-many-too-many-times, unsolved Rubix cube, never-ending Neverland, Super Mario movie, friendly yet forgetful, out-to-lunch-again, meditation intermission, yoga prayer, father, son, holy mother, brother, older and younger, sister sister, please let me die, quietly listening, loving, forgiving, reliable, dependable, imaginative, red and green apple, funny, timeless, best-friend & lover of a cigarette.

  • Monday Night Poetry #26

    A dove sits idly on a river

    She listens for a swan

    To recover

    But he is long drowned

    And far deeper than six feet under

    -B.B