Prairie fires

I sometimes worry that to keep a blog such as this one is self-serving and egotistical. So many sentences beginning with "I". But at the same time, where am I without that pharmaceutical glow or percussion of text against eyes against mind against heart? Shut up tight, liquor-lunged perhaps or bronzed from necessity to be something worth knowing. So it's as much for me to share as it is for you to cradle, maybe. And that alone is enough justify it.

That, and the echo.

It's been a while again, hasn't it? I'd promise not to make a habit of allowing months between posts but these things happen. The shame of it is that with such a larger span of time to reflect on I feel like I lose track of the minute bits of beauty that really matter in favor of summary. But this too, will happen. Almost as unforgiving is the feeling of responsibility- to say something grand and worthy of time wasted. And I'll be honest, there's nothing more synthetic than a month sprinkled in powdered sugar. So we'll try avoid that. We'll stay as small as we can without losing it through the space between our fingers.

I don't miss being home any more than I missed college those first weeks between sheets that smell like the sheets I've slept between for years. The freedom is still fresh and I haven't enough time to think about how I'm another year older and another year more unfit for hiding under my parents wings. Or how in 3 years I'll be expected to frequent the nest more as a novelty than a necessity. Give me time. I'll be thoroughly worried about my life and my future and growing up soon. Right now I'm just enjoying the quiet and the late mornings.

My classes are alright. Naturally, Poetry Workshop is the high point of my academic week. My professor proving himself a genius over and over again with each class. It's a homecoming and my poems have never been more organic. Better writers than I have dreamed of being poets. And better writers than I have crumbled, become homeless, sucked shotguns off, given up. Taught high school English in tiny Minnesota towns. Drank until the words couldn't tread water any longer. And worse writers than them have weathered long enough to see dawn break the storm clouds. Precious few of us wake to blue skies. Precious few.

Intro to Psych is essentially the same course I took in high school. With the same book and everything. Anything short of an A is a product of my foolishness. Intro to Lit is essentially 3 hours of prospective Literature majors attempting to assert themselves as insightful. It'd be wrong of me to assume myself above this, but I don't know. If only Hemingway knew what we were going to do to his work. He'd have shot his publisher before himself.

I have Public Speaking tomorrow. It's more work than a Public Speaking course should be, but the professor knows her shit. And the company is quite the opposite of unpleasant. Quiz tomorrow. I haven't studied.

Of all the things I think about, the wildest must be my midwest romances. There are few things more desirable than sky blue skies into sunsets over rangetops. Of handholding and gypsy-moths and blue jeans and prairie fires. The warmth that sweeps through evening chill like inland waves or music.

It's funny how people can look different from different angles. Or how hard it is to tell the girl across the classroom that her abnormally large nose was the most beautiful thing I saw today. That so much history must be in the creases of her face that form when she smiles. Some eyes are just tired. And I want to tell you, boy with the cigarette outside the atrium, that I know how you feel. You're gonna be alright.

We're all gonna be just fine.

Bomb the Blogosphere,
Mike

Post Script: Something more tethered to Earth soon haha. I promise.