Ben Bonkoske

  • The Temptations

    The falling snow is a good excuse not to run today. I’ve earned a day off after stuffing my gullet. Looking back (on the morning rain), I’m glad my parents never budged on allowing any form of inebriation in their household. I hold nothing against parents who did, but the thrill of sneaking around to get away with something you know you shouldn’t is truly a fond memory when I think of growing up. I don’t miss the arguments that I got in when I got caught. I’m still not that far away from taking a brisk walk, bumming a cigarette and jumping into a hot shampoo shower so a hunting dog wouldn’t suspect a thing. I’m learning and growing older. Because of these old rules I can abide by them on my own accord nowadays. I am on the brink of an application to a very competitive MFA program so pray for me. I don’t necessarily believe praying changes the outcomes of things, but prayer changes the person who prays to be a better person I think. I’m always surprised after I get two or three sentences rolling that I’m much more willing to share the depths of my desires and fears with my lovelies. There always seems to be someone awake in the attic of my very noisy head. I have very low expectations but I also believe in miracles. Miracles are handed out to those who dare to go and get it. I’m am very afraid of rejection (I just don’t know it yet). A comedian I respect talked about what he would do differently if he was my age. He responded, “ask her out”. Take the risk. Approach the things you are scared of. And if it wasn’t for my father’s rigorous rules but empathetic turn around, I would never have the courage to try and pull off a Ocean’s Eleven heist. The Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop. There. I said it. Now the whole world can celebrate when I lose. I’ve said it before, I am a very lucky loser. Of course this year has been bad. And things can always get a lot worse. But it takes so much more strength and effort to remember the good things that happened instead of everything that went awry.

  • TV Dinner Bang Bang

    So many reasons to be happy. The first being food. The second being stinking up the family room with flatulence after indulgent desserts. So, food again. Yesterday was the first time I gave myself the exception to not write for the few people who make me have some semblance that my writing has any meaning. My greatest fault is that I am the only editor of my work. No one has the time. Hell, I barely have the time. I will admit, some of the books I read are not as profound as my chicken scratch. But most of the time, I am embarrassed of my best work. I strive to put pen to paper every night, and on the rare days I don’t, I wake up early enough that I might do it twice in one day. At Breakfast AND Dinner. But between you and I, I rarely eat breakfast. I don’t know how all those spared calories are going to catch up with me when I have to wake up early enough that I’d be hungry to go without them. A bagel might suffice. Regardless, it is never enough. One sentence too short and never meaningful enough to make a difference. I need to do a little more day dreaming to gather some insights that might be worthwhile to write. Carl Jung said there is information and insight. 20 books in one year is a lot of information, but without a joint to spark it, it lays latent without much depth. I just have to remind myself that through abstinence I might arrive at a conclusion unavailable to inebriation. It is a…enduring decision. One of my writer affiliates was my age when he got sober, but after a few years he resorted to some bad behavior. He claims he never got back the spark he had when he was young and sober. I oddly relate. I don’t know if I constitute my life as a firework of passion and inspiration, but the input and output is that of an orgy. John Mulaney got sober (and stayed sober) when he was my age, and he is funny in a quirky way that doesn’t need your approval. He’s like the Zoey Deschanel of dudes. I am going to finish a journal I started at the end of July soon. Since July 25th, of the 125 days have passed, I’d bet I’ve written 125 pages. So I have written a small novella about a chronic masterbater who is afraid of sugar. He fails miserably at not eating chocolate before bed. BUT WHAT WILL HAPPEN? TUNE IN FOR THE SEQUEL. It will be titled December 2020 (working title). My old journals took me a good year to finish, but they had so much more digression and character. This most recent scrawl, although filled with poetry, is like a formulaic ancient Chinese water torture. It is just the same sentences written over and over. Maybe I am getting better, but maybe I’m just stagnant. I am reading a biography of one of my favorite authors and by the time he was my age when he wrote that “he had grown up from complaining”, and the next year he wrote probably the greatest masterpiece ever written, A Confederacy of Dunces. It is the only book that has made me laugh out loud. Hemingway takes the fun out of writing, but he turns prose into poetic justice. Thank you all for watching this debacle of English. I look forward to the ending.

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  • simp licity

    I’m a scaredy-cat. The only reason I’m typing this is so I don’t have to endure one more frigid shower. I don’t know if I should categorize this as positive motivation, or just fear-mongering of the soul. You can learn a lot by being patient with yourself. Perhaps just as much from being angry at everybody else. I used to think it was a lie that things would ever get easier. I thought that living was just going to get harder the longer I was alive. There is truth that the juggling act of balancing work, love, and social life grows like cancer. But the physical act of breathing has somehow become manageable. It used to really hurt to live. Still does occasionally.

    People are so damn wonderful for no reason sometimes. You’ll be sitting there, worrying about your next sentence, and some unnamable face will warm your heart. You don’t have to remember all the details of who they once were and why they walked into your life for a passing moment, but there they are, sitting, waiting to be remembered. I’m referring to people that you might’ve smoked a bowl with once, or shared a poem in your Christmas light lit room with, but nothing more. We really put too much emphasis on the end-all-be-all relationship. It is the nameless little acts of kindness that make up the better parts of our lives. Love is so miserable. Friendship often feels so fleeting. I am more comfortable with spiting people rather than actually wishing them well on their life’s travels. To walk around, live in a city, sleep under the stars in the country, or hell, take a bus, is a beautiful adventure. walk alone. don’t be afraid. know better than to hate someone for their mistakes. The waiting room is not for you!

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  • Stand off

    It has come to my attention that I am a toxic boyfriend. No, I didn’t realize this right after a plate was thrown at my head. This revelation finally occurred almost two years after being in a relationship. Lucky me! My sister asked me how my love life is these days. It sure is nice constantly spending time alone. It sure is nice to be focused on your own reflection in the mirror. I just don’t think I do well with people on anything more than a surface relationship. I am too deep. I am too shallow. Love is an ugly equilibrium. It is unfair to ask anyone to stick around and watch you deteriorate. It is like two strangers slowly walking towards each other from opposite sides of the earth. The world is always seen differently. Sobriety doesn’t solve everything. It does make me good at doing a lot more useless things. I’m trying to do the hardest things first. All it did was make me waste a perfectly good Saturday. I don’t want to take days off, but I still find myself oversleeping, eating, and reading in bed. Don’t get mad, but little boys are not always the meanest entity in a relationship. There is a distinct difference between not knowing you are an asshole and intentionally trying to break someone’s heart. I think, these days, it is best to love from afar. Love makes people stupid. So do drugs. I do remember the last time I jumped off the wagon being disgusted by how poorly I spent my time. I don’t think we recognize all the white noise we create by honing a craft. It is only oh so human. I’ve wasted a damn year. I’ve lived for the first year in my life. There were books I planned to read for all of college that weren’t finished until I took a long lonely look in the mirror. Yes, I write because I lost everything. It isn’t worth it love be infatuated with someone’s output of work. Because my love, you would only detract from it. Perhaps you may be my muse, but darling, you are meant for so much more.

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  • seraph

    Sugar addiction (along with all the other self-imposed problems I have) is very real. Oh no! A bowl of ice cream at the end of the week. It will surely be my demise. I usually feel my brain pulse from a long day of mental gymnastics. I read and walk it off. I listen to people talk in my earbuds until I’ve had enough. So then I just listen to the birds. South for the winter. I frighten deer on my misadventures. I miss North Carolina, but I prefer my new track. 2.5 miles twice a day and I’m still gaining weight. Sleep is all I can think about, and it is because I’ve burned enough calories by thinking alone. I am always a little bit better than the day before, even though I haven’t changed since tomorrow. I’m on borrowed time, and it is burning a hole in my pocket. Nothing changes someone more than unearned money. I have a luxury chef. I am trying my best, but it is less than you would expect. It is not a natural phenomenon for someone as wild as me to live in captivity. Aldous Huxley wrote how the slaves of the future will freely be chained. I am looking for the struggle, but the only thing that makes my life a challenge is restraining from another bowl of rocky road. I can’t believe what this breeds. I am lucky that I have a long road ahead of looking back fondly on this wasted year. It will surely be something that will stir the paint into an ugly brown. I have an upsidedown frown. I am excited for life to move on. My thoughts are quiet for how loud I laugh at my great mistakes. Seriously, there are things that I would never replace for the rat race.

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