Tag / hope

by bcmiller2014

Seagull Tears

She didn’t cry when the
seagulls died, or seemed
to, their nest uprooted
with a handy plank and
discarded in a slick black
trash bag on the roof. 
She didn’t cry then. She
cried later, when she couldn’t 
find her keys, and when 
she sat with friends 
discussing completely
unrelated things, and 
when she went to check
her email. Grief is funny
like that. 

The birds were
okay. Watched over as
they had been they 
never knew someone
checked every morning
to see how they were,
named their babies,
worried over flying
lessons. They didn’t 
know how much they
were loved, messengers
of hope in a concrete
landscape. At first
she felt stupid for
grieving. Idiotic birds
making messes. Most
people don’t even like
seagulls. But then she
realized, the loving was
in the seeing, and most
people are blind. 

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

Patience

I wait, as we do, quite
often. I wait for my husband 
as he bounces around the 
city finding rugs and 
furnishings and bits of 
paper with pictures most
have never seen to make 
a stranger’s walls look
personal. I wait 
for the home where I can
see a tree instead of a 
crane, both making homes 
but one giving breath, as
well. I wait for dreams of 
expressing my self, and I wait 
for solid funding. I wait for
physical love. I wait for 
understanding and for 
things I don’t even know 
I need to ease my inward 
groaning because
there never isn’t groaning,
even if it’s only released 
through the soles of my 
feet. I wait to find out if you
love me. I wait to find out if
I love me. I wait and I 
think and I wonder if ever 
the waiting will end because
at some fantastic and 
mystical point I will finally
rest in knowing the who I 
am in me and you. 

by bcmiller2014

Rejected Feelings

Rejected feelings, stick figures in a
full bodied world, find paltry places
in which to hide themselves, sitting
with their knees splayed out, their
elbows pointed arrows in the
directions I haven’t gone.  Angry
buggers, and who can blame them,
dodging the out-flung expletives I
hardly ever throw?  If I feel sorry 
and feed them, will they thrive, and 
then, what
will my penance
be?

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

The Illusion (w/a nod to the Tardis)

“So many things are bigger
on the inside,” she said and
ran to open the door. “Things
will never be dull,” her grand-
father said when his eyes 
could still summon a twinkle. 

Right, both of them. Out-
side-in all around set
spinning with monsters 
from under the bed and 
the wolf with a red bonnet
on. And friends, she met
them, too, of course, with 
their pink hair and house 
pigs and all their very own
cages. She wondered if
everyone had a cage, but
only had to decorate. 
Maybe some called it home. 

Then spinning about and
around again she flew, with
a complete absence of
bedding, mind you, hoping
at once for more of the same
and a stationary room with
an address she could use for
mailing. All an illusion. A
motionless room still glides
through space around a 
flaming, gravitational well in
a tiny corner of the universe. 
So she grabbed the rail and
hoped to God a mad man 
from the sky would save her. 

(So much for not being abstract. Sometimes I just have to
be me)