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by bcmiller2014

Stories

I know you like I know my great-grandmother. She was in photographs. I heard stories of how kind she was, and how stubborn. She decided she’d never give birth after the first time and that was that. She never had sex after that. She had white hair by the time she was 35, and Great-Grandpa died young so I don’t think I can recommend it as a lifestyle. She used to read dog stories to my dad and they’d cry together and it was the only time in his life my dad ever showed his feelings to anyone. I’d like to meet her. If she could get my dad to cry, I think we should talk.

There aren’t any real pictures of you. Well, there aren’t any good ones. Pasty-faced Jesus and big fireballs don’t count. There are plenty of stories. You’re imaginative, I’ve got to give you that, and you don’t seem  to give up easily. Tenacious, I’d say, if you want to be friends with me (though I don’t have a guarantee on that). We don’t think the same way, you and I. You’re a mystery but you are enormous, like the inside of a black hole thrown outward so all its bits are spread over the boundaries between our universe and another we haven’t discovered yet.  I feel ridiculous when I’m upset with you. I’d like to meet you. I think I’d start by asking you to read sad dog stories and wait to see if you cried. If so, we might be able to talk. 

by bcmiller2014

Scrambled Eggs

Okay, I know what everyone else has figured out already. Getting upset about the seagulls wasn’t just about the seagulls. The problem is that I don’t understand what it really is about. I’m pretty darned tuned into the universe so I suppose part of it could be about hearing the earth groan all the time. It could be about all the devastation humans wreak on each other and the planet. It could be about watching my mother suffer all her life, or watching my dad give up all his dreams, or being their “all we’ve got in the world.” It could have something to do with being married to my dear husband for over 18 years and still dealing with a multitude of issues around physical intimacy. Perhaps it’s about being rejected and/or misunderstood by my in-laws, having little family of my own and feeling sort of alone. Adopted family is great, but it’s never quite the same, is it? It could be related to my desire to create, always thwarted by my need to earn a stable income and teach others how to be more creative. I’m writing a terribly depressing paper about the unseen human costs of cheap production of goods, demanded by people who expect rock bottom prices so they can take mission trips to help the poor, when the truth is, the demand for low prices is creating most of the poor, supporting slavery and child labor, and decimating the environment the most for persons of color and few economic resources. Is it about all that? I almost cried when someone let me pet their dog today. I cried at a commercial on T.V. I’m walking with a limp.

It’s not as though any of the above is new information. I think that’s why I’m confused. I’ve understood and accepted all of this and more. So why now has my body decided to grieve?

Maybe the seagulls were the last straw-the latest instance in which love has failed and suffering has won the day. It was in my face, a blatant violation of one of the factors that has allowed me to continue thinking that living on earth is something I can accomplish without being completely destroyed. My seagulls were stability. They were hope. I counted on the ritual of their lives as one of the anchors in my universe. And yes, I know seagulls don’t live as long as us and are susceptible to tragedy like everyone else. I worried about it, but to see their home destroyed so carelessly, thrown in the trash as though everything beautiful and precious to me were worthless shit to be taken away in just a matter of time. That surprised me.

We are promised nothing while we’re here. God says he’ll be with us, but I don’t understand him. Some of my friends think he’s attempting to perfect us by allowing a series of afflictions, and it’s all for our own good. Some people say he’s in control of everything, and everything happens for a purpose. To this I say, “bullshit.” I think shit just happens. I’m not interested in a God who allows birth defects so we’ll gain character. There’s got to be something I’m missing, but if God actually wants relationship with me he’s going to have to do more than meet me halfway. He’s God, after all, and I have the stature of a flea when it comes to the size of the universe. So I guess I’ll just wait here and send this invitation out into the spiritual dimension. God, I need you to show up. You owe me nothing. I’m sort of banking on the “God is love” theme being true, even though I have no idea how that actually works. Without something outside of and greater than myself to give meaning to this brief, astounding and devastating life, I’ve got nothing. I never believed in that whole idea that children give a person a sort of immortality, and I don’t even have kids. Maybe the point is in loving each other, but we’ve proven we all suck at that. I do have a lot to be grateful for. I didn’t haul my water from a dirty river today. I’m not living in a war zone. I can move around and do stuff. I need more. If you’re the one who decided I’d be a deep thinker then it’s your own damn fault. If all we have is this breath then I need you to show me what that breath is for. I’m asking for your help when I know I deserve nothing. I’m asking anyway. What the hell. It never hurts to ask, right?

by bcmiller2014

The Chaos Feeling Out

While endeavoring greatly to do nothing, my heart endeavors strongly to be heard. All those tears and shiver-making thoughts that I’ve captured and boxed and stored in places I no longer remember, come pounding back at once and I become small, like a 
seed 
at the bottom of the universe.  These feelings are all lost, gangly teenagers who don’t know how to express themselves, hoping to be strung somehow, like 
pearls – which 
I would be happy to do if I were big enough. Perhaps there’s some warm soil for my seed from
underneath a galaxy. 

by bcmiller2014

Expectations

I panic when I cannot sleep.
I cannot sleep because I panic.
I know damn well that there’s no
real cause for alarm, but it doesn’t
matter. Controlling the process
is controlling the direction
of the wind.

I am sad when I see cruelty. Because of cruel people I am sad.
I know that these persons are
primarily hurt, but it doesn’t matter.
Controlling the process is controlling
the height of the waves as they wash
the shore.

I draw a circle and it is round. When I
see a round shape, it is a circle. It doesn’t matter. They’re one and the same and all of life is like this. We wonder, when it does not matter, which of all came first. Controlling the process is holding hands and expecting not to be strangers.

by bcmiller2014

Generalized Anxiety

10:29 on a Sunday night. It’s 
the hard night, the
night before the possibility
that I will fail, disappoint, 
fall apart. I fear this night
without thinking about it. 
I have breathing exercises,
prescribed pills, and routines
to keep me calm. My heart
thumps faster than it should
and I know there’s no reason,
except the world isn’t a 
safe place and a person 
never knows. But except 
for that.

What are you
doing here?  Where were
you born and how old
was I?  

You are here and
you are big. I cannot 
conquer you. I can’t 
pray you away. I can’t
meditate enough or breathe 
enough or ignore you 
enough to un-create you. 
Quite frankly, you’re a 
problem. 

You are here
and you are small. You
have no facts, even when
I can’t argue.  You will
not kill me. I won’t give 
up. We’re going to have
to be roommates for a 
while until finally, I can 
maybe get my own 
place. Until then, what’s 
your name? I think we’re
in this together. 

by bcmiller2014

Anniversary

Jason head shot

Five years are nothing. In five
years we breathe, we wake up,
we shower and go to work, we
go about all the business of
living. We eat pancakes and
decide what kind of syrup to
pour. Pure maple from a tree
for me or nothing, but you
weren’t so picky. You said you
were our campy friend,
and always sounded a little
ashamed, as though being down
to earth and able to start a fire
were something bad. I never
got to square that with you. We
always just laughed, and I never
told you, in a way that you heard,
that I loved that you were campy.
I loved that you were a fire-starter,
a seer, an enormous voice. You
were so, so big. You were the full moon in a sky full of stars, gleaming on the rough Sound of all the lives around you. I think you still are. I see you, your hobbit feet all swimming in green in a pocket, just to the right of the moon, but close, in the know of all our outs and ins. You piss me off sometimes, grinning there where I can’t touch you, as though your hugs were unimportant. They mattered, you know. They made me a person who was wanted and that made me want to live. I don’t know if you knew that, but I guess you do now, five years later, since you passed between pages from the book we know here to another one, where you can see all the colors. I miss you. I’m sorry it hurt so much. First brother, adopted late, I love you a billion years more. 

by bcmiller2014

Hope

I want to see what I
haven’t seen before, and
I don’t mean “The Alps” or 
“The Eiffel Tower.”  I want to
see things that matter.
I want to see through the 
eyes of my more colorful brothers
and sisters, to find out what life
has really been like for them. 
I’m vanilla white, sunburn-prone,
and privileged for no good reason. 
I want to know what people have 
suffered and what I can do to
make it better.   Hope is power. 
I need to see a way 
forward, a clue, a shred of what
might be if we dream, if we 
dare to see maybe and perhaps
as mighty and in the end
something worth living for.
To see that, I need
to listen. To hear hope I need 
to see. You, me, and everyone
are a family in a whole new way, 
use consonants to create space 
and vowels to punch holes in 
our sentences.  We speak
because words are power. We 
listen because it’s electric. It
brings life to our lonely sentences
and makes humans out of all
our shattered ways. 

by bcmiller2014

Class time

I put on my stage clothes, my
particular shoes. My notes unfold 
themselves, each letter
connected appropriately, following
the others like trains on rails. 
Your fingers deftly snatch each of 
them from the ground and toss
them into disrespected heaps of toys.
I could let my rounded lips loose, 
my staccato consonants pelting 
you like sleet, but kindness is one 
of the things that’s important, like
oxygen.  It can even control the 
weather. I bundle this fact in paper
so you’ll have to unwrap it over time,
if you can find it, while I stare at my
particular shoes.