Leaving Kansas
By Brett Clay Miller
Copyright 2012 Brett Clay Miller
Contents
A Scab's Pension
Dressing Down
Bringing Home the Wrenches
Waking toward Wednesday
The Thing about Being My God
Spring Has Brown Eyes
Fair Weather Friend
Blood Runs Cold
Left on Magnolia
Building the Perfect Beast
The Sometimes Girl
The Editor
Public Library
Gridlock Anomalies
The (Dis)comfort of Strangers
Matters of Plurality
The Commerce of Our Passions
A Proper Jar for Fireflies
Why I Left the Farm
Abusing the Transitive Property
The Stuff of Common Mumblage
Addicted, White-Collar, Vegetarian Atheist
Stalking Narcissa
The South Side of the Turret
About the Author
* * *
A Scab's Pension
Once certain doorways have been breached, they can never again be fully latched (no matter how fresh the paint). Hard-sell company men wearing tasteful green power-suits over soiled underthings will ever lurk in the warehouse, eavesdropping on your self-talk and rationalizations, silently willing you to ignore the picket line and step back onto the production floor.
Dressing Down
My quandary appears deceptively simple despite its metamorphic potential, snugly couched in the orderly folds of the drawer-bound and the vacuous expressions of those who consider such things. What sleeps in a cabinet becomes groggy, forgetful of its heritage. What is crumpled can be unfolded, yet the creases remain. Do I select one of the greens, some of which have never learned to roll solo? A purple, with its gender-bending implications? Or the red, which screams in my face as blue would never presume? In the end, I go with the one that reaches out and pinches me. Too much introspection shatters the hue.
Bringing Home the Wrenches
His tools speak freely and prolifically in ways that he (a once-reluctant visitor) no longer can, quietly but firmly divulging the preferences of defunct generations, curating a legacy of skinned knuckles and projects that once mattered. Though the context of some devices are forever forfeit, I need only wield his hammer to resurrect him: larger than life; stern in a tired sort of way; not a man to sit quietly in one of the graves dotting the hillside like so many geese; even now dispensing advice on money, decisions, shaving and lawnmowers. I keep an eye out for General Motors products: time machines assembled with his blood and sweat, still fully capable of negotiating the void between us. His death (he always referred to it as 'the alternative') taught me that words, at times, are little more than disciples sleeping in the garden, but his response to my query (what does it feel like to be free of this body and its ravening?) is as clear to me as his initials on a 12mm wrench: It's not the dying that hurts--it's the waking up alive.
Waking toward Wednesday
Sleep is a snack, and dreams are runaways (but someone else's kids, so quickly out of mind). We dream to emulate the normal passage of time, else slumber and wakefulness would be scarcely divided, rendering linear what was designed to be cyclic. As a result, assuming I manage to sidestep the uninvited crowds so habitually clogging the dream-state, I find myself alternately averting disaster or begging for clemency on a nightly basis. Perhaps it is not sleeplessness that hums incessantly in my ear, rather a disillusioned recruiter, delving in matters that have us both living in the future, peering ever backwards to estimate the prospective worth of our endeavors. The true perils of this manner of consumption have us napping in shifts, and we are swaying in twin saddles of capricious ideation. As we prepare to enter the fray, surely we can be forgiven a few half-conscious stretch offerings, erroneously dumped at the altar of dawn.
The Thing about Being My God
He has not my addiction to sequence, nor my lust for unadulterated symmetry, which I feed like pets (needy little beasties whose poor understanding cannot negate the truth). Certainly I am no Judas, choking down my bread and slipping into the darkness with evil on my mind, nor a trailer park Madonna, thoughtfully framed by a sawed-off bathtub, but I am proficient in the dubious craft of fashioning exquisitely teachable moments, and despite my attraction to other genres, I am inexorably entrenched in my own. By this chronicle, I think, he is scarcely troubled.
Spring Has Brown Eyes
When April shifts her mood from sun to storm as freely as a tearful child (whose head was once thrown back and dripping; whose laughs were from the gut; whose voice wafted merrily across great distances with an ambling cadence; who had great tolerance for the absurd), I come to learn the difference between the forest and the woods. There is a unique paralysis induced by the sound of rain falling on detritus, but the rumblings, flashes and bluster from the sky conjure more delight than dread, exhorting my bones to comprehend a language that my mouth could never hope to speak. I ride the storm with the spring melt, cascading from the heights on a fickle torrent, uncertain whether to feel exhilarated or just soggy.
Fair Weather Friend
This unseasonal zephyr is last night's shirt, redolent of things half-forgotten, a bittersweet remnant of spontaneous trips to the coast and nine-month hiatuses. The sunrise crusades for each and every member of the spectrum, embracing the lowest peaks with a public nod to a private tryst. Conspiring with the trees to record my own personal soundtrack, the breeze nudges Thursday into view, and my skin cannot help but sing. For now, I hang on the clothesline, fluttering slightly, breathing in the sun. I know that darkness will eventually displace the wary from the trail--that West will cling fiercely to promises that East has already broken--but the smell of this wind will live forever in my child's hair.
Blood Runs Cold
When spring creeps in between the bricks, my feet delight in learning again to be bare. Each sensory faculty cavorts with abandon, clamoring at once for attention. As summer becomes fully manifest, I am alive; distilled; reduced to the lowest common denominator; defined by little more than pores and sweat. Autumn blows many questions in my face, mingling harsh words with fresh breath for optimal effect, but despite the habitual loss of limb, the trees toss back to the sun what it throws, cheerfully waving with a thousand tiny hands as they lean steadfastly toward the future. Winter, though, is only death: that of cruel-hearted visionaries who dare to dress forward, delicacy become formidable by virtue of numbers alone. No matter the true season, she is close on my heels.
Left on Magnolia
Refusing to walk tall on the prairie and pretend she is not Kansas, she prefers to crouch in the foothills, where her curves are best described in terms of elevation (not population). The river rollicks past holding twelve conversations with itself as the pavement swallows its tail in a hasty climb to meet the sisters. I am beset on all sides by the warmth and unexpected comfort of density, primeval composites born of great pressure which are unable to be sane or not sane, but able only to be.
Building the Perfect Beast
Few things are as forlorn as a recently vacated playground, swings still in motion; or a railroad bridge, born of sweat and lacking patience for rust and its clever cousins; or the creature in my basement, comprised of castoffs in a kind of purgatory that are not yet worthy of a more certain fate, sprouting a new limb each time I descend the stairs. Despite all of this, the undercurrent of desperation running through the electronics I use like heroin is markedly more sinister, and they fail me sooner or later in ways no human can. Even my phone has separation anxiety, biting its lip until I step in the shower. But when I get out and drop my towel on the floor, there i
s something regal in the lay of its folds: not discarded, but reclining; worthy of depiction. This, my friend, is the beauty of analog.
The Sometimes Girl
I first see her in the marketplace, threading the booths casually, hair bridled at the nape of her neck as if her beauty is a nuisance. She has the habit of looking over her shoulder, like a roller derby jammer on her day off. She smiles patiently at the homesick Palestinian running the fruit stand, and when he angrily punches the buttons on his register, her laugh tumbles out and bounces around with no measure of restraint. Is it her faith or her youth that makes her shiny? Either way, I can't help but aspire to her slow-motion deliberation, the thoughtful economy with which she moves her hands, mapping the craft and creed of her labors. Two weeks later, I see her again, gripping the hand of a young child. Even at a distance, the tilt of her head and the line of her jaw eradicate the circumstances between us. I don't need all of the details, and I have no interest in owning her. I just need to know that when she smiles, she is more than just another passing biped squinting westward.
The Editor
The sidewalk lining Central Avenue is packed, a queue of restless vagrants stretching the length of the block. Some discuss money-back marketing strategies as they wait; or markers and cardboard scored from moonlighting gigs; the latest of their number lost to the orange vest and name tag; continuing education classes with titles like 'Panhandling for Couples'. An overdressed consultant strides up and down the street, heels clicking smartly on the pavement, doing the best that she can. "Try substituting the word 'struggling' for 'having a hard time'," she says. "It's all about economy of space." To the next in line, "'Spaceship' should be one word." She shakes her head tiredly. So many panhandlers, so little time.
Public Library
Whose lives and cars are in shambles, whose secrets like the wings of errant moths whisper against the glass, patrons flutter to the brilliant safety of its orderly rows, taking sustenance from the ambient murmur of context so tidily bound, having stroked no one--absently or otherwise--as this book, this night.
Gridlock Anomalies
I am a man of numerous U-turns on a road that allows it. As I languish in traffic, I witness the following: a truck driver displays by his choice of decals an appalling lack of taste, nearly redeemed by his uncommon flair for symmetry; a girl with a hoop over one shoulder cycles past on a bike with striped handlebars; another crosses the street like a squirrel on fire (smoking and unable to commit); a tubby guy in a minivan playfully drums his considerable paunch. This city and its people are a mid-winter night (frigid, though not without character); the suburbs, a steaming bath (pacifying to the brink of dizziness). Though I wish to be a gaily-colored scooter on which to putt luxuriously about the districts, there is little about me that is self-propelled. I am a one-wheeled barrow with splintered handles, rusted and pitted from years of abuse, and if care is not taken to distribute my load, I will cheerfully dump my contents all over your carefully manicured lawn.
The (Dis)comfort of Strangers
I love you best from across the room. You dangle tiny reasons and speak in acronyms, oblivious to the oppressive crowd (a benevolent heavy from Cordoba sitting beardless beneath a portrait of Walt; a few college guys discussing the inextricably entwined nature of personal history and tattoos; a dark-haired woman with a razor-sharp tongue, impossibly long eyelashes and an equally short temper). I need not respond, or even understand. In your presence, being right is of little comfort, and my opinions are heavy as stones, bursting the seams of my pockets. I struggle to discern whether you sound a greeting or a threat. In truth, I have no idea who you are, and I will be frantically searching my fragmented memory for this data during any attempts on your part to converse.
Matters of Plurality
I am at first heartened by the sight of a lone, middle-aged man riding his shopping cart through the parking lot. As he passes, though, he quietly mutters, "Excuse us," and I am left to wrestle with the inference. The thought of it slips in and back out of my consciousness like an afternoon squall, without so much as a rainbow to mark its passage. It takes me a bit to realize that I am no different, speaking in side notes and then chastising you for getting lost along the trail.
The Commerce of Our Passions
She touches him in the morning when their defenses are down, and everything is new; when the sound that their lives make when picked up and rattled together is still more music than noise. Her smell could once fill him, but her lips have become those of a well-heeled thief; her embrace a travesty. Safe in the sanity of her nearness, he thinks of leaving her; considers how kisses for kisses become piled in stacks; marvels that he is weary of the feast, yet still ravenous--naked as he arrived. Somebody has to shatter first glass, but who is to measure the wound?
A Proper Jar for Fireflies
Lament with me our wayward youth, when we were blind to the smirk of death. Time as I have come to know it is a stealthy beast of quiet rapidity and voracious hunger, hoarding its scents with ferocity. Plans that coalesce freely in the morning light cower in the dark, a dizzying cycle of salvation and betrayal. Now Saturday, whose pleasures lose face when taken daily, and Sunday, who was once the queen of options, are waving from the 4:00 bus, and I am undone by an accumulation of awkward memories. My true crime is that of selective forgetfulness; in fact, if a thing can be forgotten, consider it, for my part, never learned. Is it you that I miss, or the decades that have darted cat-like between us? The years have a knack of recycling--if only to test our responses--and though they are a blink, I would barter any three for a certain one. If it were possible to stack my occupations of this space, a motley band would soon be divulged, and much questioning would ensue in the manner and mentality of any mob. If it is over my shoulder, perhaps it should stay there. When I turn back and squint, my gut aches with the pain of forward motion. It aches with myopia; the inability to fold; what was then and therefore now. I must content myself with the knowledge that this is the summer before whatever comes next, riddled with premature fame.
Why I Left the Farm
I am cast away of my own accord, and no hostage, acutely aware that when coupled, age and what-ifs are twice as excruciating. I leave you as a man leaves his house in the early morning (with every intention of returning in full glory at some point). The out-and-about twins have become my preferred companions, and at this altitude, my days (by design) are an approximation. I am more of a twilight bank ambler than a sunfire sand basker. I sidestep as best I can the two tiny letters that could send me up the road in the wrong direction, lest the road trip I once considered the height of adventure turn into little more than something to put behind me, and what was to be a left on Satisfaction becomes a hard right on Tenacity. I am painfully cognizant that adversity is a formidable lubricant for the creative machine, and I find that a clear schedule and an open stretch of road liberate an uncommon breed of cerebral captive. It is for this reason (and shockingly few others) that I am still driving.
Abusing the Transitive Property
I am born unmuffled into the sun, taking liberties with the nearest suffix (and woe to the snippet that resists!) Though the hearts of some are too big for lower case (inciting random capitalization), I am not one to punctuate in vain; to hang a guiltless indent. Periods are what I crave--not hyphens, and certainly not long-winded colons. My chest is hollow with the strain of wrapping words around a gaping hole, sidestepping modifiers couched in quiet treachery, but words are the currency of liberation, and I can afford to spend syllables as they were loose coins. Of all that I could foreswear, this craft would reach my lips most unwillingly. Words bear life as effectively as any mother, and the unborn have a density the years only reinforce. Of dubious value or no, I am chilled by what remains unwritten. If I can wrap it in vocabulary, my heart may follow, but what is intended remains habitually unspoken, left too long by the fire and inedible by morning.
The Stuff of Common Mumblage
Loose words
and the knick-knacks they run with are a bane to my soul. This particular turn of phrase, though, is the discerning sort, who would not have the home that I offer, preferring to wed itself to unholy silence rather than grace an untrained ear. I am cowed by its resolve, yet I routinely father bastards of my own with an unrestrained tongue. What syntax has the authority to bridge this gap? Can a jewel plucked from chaos still sparkle outside of its original context? As history has established, the industry of habitual prattle is dissolved in the wake of frenzied ritual. It scampers like an errant bead and lies winking in the dirt until it is spirited away with a flurry of small hands and the sound of retreating footfalls. In the silence that follows we are compelled to acknowledge that in this (as in every) race, there is a profuse element of shock and a band of those who experience it most keenly. Some roar like a head, others wag like a tail, but the natives are in constant motion, stringing words like bones and wearing them liberally about town. Our conversations are little more than scraps, fouling the corners of the butcher's shop with a simpleton's brevity. My lyrics adopt the physique of late spring (pregnant with delay) and congregate outside the window, fogging up the glass with a hard day's breath, begging for the humblest morsel of any substance.
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