Tag / poetry

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

Pain

Pain creates a haze
most times, as
though there is no
handle on the door and
the whole great world 
were a paper bubble
around itself, crinkling
frail with a few sirens
thrown in. That is, unless
it’s sharp, and the 
moon’s outline is a 
knife that cuts the 
inked sky and lets
the dragons in.

by bcmiller2014

Misconceptions

I am a note in a barely flat
down from birth,
breathing loud and crying
quiet. Carried in circles,
the music of my silent 
self undressed, ashamed,
and just a little too
human to go back where
I came from. I
am an unmother with open
arms.  Define me, if
you dare but know I
carry your tears in my
pocket and they’ll 
return when your eyes
glass over. I
am a learner who
shares to love the thoughts
I feeling buy and make
for dinners, some 
healthier than others. 
I am no chef. I
just try to eat the
real stuff.  

2015/01/img_0014.jpg

by bcmiller2014

The Lie that She was Small

Her mother said she only ever
could rely on family, 
misty-eyed recollecting
isolation, the inescapable 
feeling she was a 
smaller species than others
she had met.  Her mother was 
taught by her parents, of course,
both of them djins released
from bottles, booming 
names with cloud-trumpets
and opinions pulled from sandstorms.
Magic was full bright but
sadly mathematical with them.
They felt small, too, probably 
taught by their parents. 

Their daughter
was different.  Of all the 
DNA combinations 
possible from two tempests,
her recipe twisted around 
itself and dreamed.  She was 
flowers in a music garden, white
eyelet and patent leather shoes,
unruly red hair, magic 
filtered soft through the evening.
That was her destiny, poor girl.  
To them, she was smaller still, though 
she could bellow a pipe organ
beautifully. In the end it was all djin
air and it made its way home 
to the bottle.

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. 

by bcmiller2014

PTSD

I was derailed that day, steel
wheels spinning sparks until
they tipped and ran to nowhere
in the air. Trains are funny that 
way. So secure, but for a rail, 
and moving so fast they don’t 
even know they’re airborne 
until they hit the ground. 
It was only a spike, a missing 
connection, a missed wish and
a fear and off I went, unconsenting,
in the dark. 

There should be a warning, some 
kind of system that would tell me 
ahead of time, but what should be
is merely whistling ahead, someone’s
daydream, a Turing computer with-
out all the parts. 

I was there. Now I’m here. I owned 
my own body, spoke my own 
words and then, as one spark lit
a bit of grass, I was all outside 
myself, watching. Thank God
for people who see me, who find 
me floating there, find my hand,
and pull. I am dependent at times,
but otherwise, I am a train. 

by bcmiller2014

12 Stories, 18 years and a Thousand Times

The men and women on the street 
are cheering and blowing those
things like kazoos that go 
by a different name. Some 
people are stuck in their 
cars for the fireworks display,
sitting helplessly in rows 
while the excitement happens
elsewhere. My cat is 
startled by the firecrackers,
his ears back, tucking down
his whole body and then 
jumping to the windowsill to 
see what can be seen. He’s
on the other side of the fireplace 
from us, where we’re doing the
same thing, 12 stories up, with
buildings blocking the view. 
I can’t tell if we’re glad to 
see the new year enter or
happy the old one is done. 
I hurt you, just trying to 
love, and you hurt me just
trying to be. We’ve done 
this, eighteen years now. 
I want your hand but
can’t find it. Maybe this
is the year we find each 
other, glancing over dinner
and seeing something new
we’ve seen a thousand times
before. I miss you when we
eat apart, at the same table. 

(Sometimes I really do try not to be too
Abstract)