C J MILLER: Favorites

4d C J MILLER

Kalliope

No matter my crisis,
There’s one thing I know-
Even when I’m at my lowest,
I still make the ******* joke.

The room goes quiet,
So I start to smile.
Deflecting pain like an actress,
It never goes out of style.

Tears sting behind my eyes,
But I deliver the line clean.
And everyone laughs,
Because no one knows what the **** it means.

My hurt has a laugh track-
Invisible, robotic, rehearsed.
And if I keep it playing loud enough,
Maybe I won’t feel the worst.

Because silence feels like sinking,
And truth feels like a loss.
But a joke? That’s a win.
Misery is humor’s final boss.

And though I’ve got some hecklers,
Right at center stage,
I just keep the jokes coming,
Better to stay funny than be enraged.

#trauma #humor #joke #funny #avoidance #performance

4d C J MILLER

Dancing

4d C J MILLER

Lynn Stillman

Dancing

Nothing in common.
Yet we dance to the same tune.
We are the music.

4d C J MILLER

Surrealism

4d C J MILLER

Joel K

Surrealism

Writing words for familiar enthusiasm, an emotion used to creep into the mind.
Creativity crawling out the head— like spiders each with 5 limbs of their own.
Pulling strings with their fleshy appearance.
A dance for free will compared to an object.
Sketching imagery with lyrical flows served to ears.
In spite of all the efforts…temporary rest acts as a trigger.
A writers block
A brick tied to my chain.
Words coming in and out the ears, not knowing what to do.
The headphones tune it all out, the pain of not being free— a slave to the environment and it’s still imagery.
The experience is mutual.
A lie beheading a rose.

- I was feeling numb when I wrote this so I was slipping in and out from reality to how I felt like emotionally.
So many of the lines talk about different stuff but the interpretation is up to the reader.

4d C J MILLER

i knew i'd burn

4d C J MILLER

kortu valentine

i knew i'd burn

i was warned
i'd fall for you.
stay away from him,
they said.
sweetie, he’s bad news.

i laughed it off,
thinking i knew better,
thinking, that this time
would be different.

i always loved a challenge.

three months it took
for my mind
to catch up
with my heart.
by then,
you’d already
moved on.

this one is about the attraction my friends noticed long before I did.
July 29, 2025

#attraction #spark #crush #firsts #love #breakup #almost #ex #ache #lovepoem

4d C J MILLER

i dreamed a dream

4d C J MILLER

Charlie

i dreamed a dream

i've been so sad lately that i had a dream
about someone who truly loved me for me
he was smiling down at me as we danced around slowly
and just for a moment, i didn't feel so lonely
but when i woke up, i tried to remember his name
or the feel of his hands soothing away my pain
but i couldn't even recall his face, despite my endeavors
which is a shame, cause if i could, i would've stayed there forever

4d C J MILLER

angel

4d C J MILLER

Charlie

angel

the frost stretches its cold hands
across the wind from foreign lands
watch your breath dissolve like smoke
in stars and moonshine and soft fading hope

the night sky is dripping, its eyes are awake
from the red sleeping fox to the quick deadly snake
the leaves are all weeping as they fall one by one
we'll pick up our messes and leave when we're done

the canary is watching, its gaze like a coal
burning straight through you, making you feel whole
there is a promise in the way it spreads its downy wings
the wind whispers around it as together they sing

the clouds are your sisters and brothers and friends
so lay your head down, angel, let's try this again
the lilacs are drowsy with the hope of tomorrow
don't cry, let the rain wash away your sorrow

in the dawn of tonight and the wake of the sun
promise me one thing when all this is done
tell me you'll come when it is my time
on the drop of a penny or the spin of a dime

leave nothing to chance, love, when all things are over
take my hand and i'll wish you a peaceful cross over
i will stand at your graveside and sing you a song
and whisper apologies all the day long.

written half for my little brother John, who died just moments before being born, and half for me, who misses him maybe more than anyone in the world.

4d C J MILLER

Blue Pen to Cigarette

4d C J MILLER

Brooke

Blue Pen to Cigarette

Let me tell you, I thought I knew love before you came around.

I mean, I’ve written a million love poems.

But the subjects, they’re more or less the same, black ink, red ink, graphite.

And the graphite smudges, and so the picture is never perfect.

I try to re-write it all without mistakes, but I don't have an eraser.

Which is to say that I have commitment issues, but no issue committing, I just commit all the time, to everything.

I've canoodled with paper, but there's never enough space on the page for all the love I have.

Sometimes, I’ll meet a crayon that brings some colour to my life, but they’re just too waxy and impressionable. Too immature, too naive.

Naive.

I’ve never actually been in love.

But you, you are so much different and way hotter.

You bring a spark into my life that I’ve never known.

Baby, you set my world on fire.

I tell myself, blue pen, don’t let this go up in smoke.

Let me tell you. I would do anything to know love.

You see, there isn’t much to me, but I’ve got this way with words and I’ll write you into every poem that’s ever birthed hope in the eyes of star-crossed lovers.

I’ll draw you a map of my heart so when you feel lonely after you’ve been put aside and forgotten in the back of a cupboard, I’ll be there.

I want you.

I want the good things and your sweet embrace of smoke smells really good right now.

I want the good things but I’ll take it all. I’ll take the bad things too.

Fill my lungs with your poison, show me what it’s like to love something so much it kills you.

Teach me how to give all of myself to someone just so they are satisfied, even if it leaves me crushed on the cement.

Let me become addicted to you.

My whole life is written in ink and I can’t escape the mistakes I’ve made so if you’ll have me, here I am.

I can’t guarantee that I’ll be right for you, who knows what you write with but I will be here.

Let me tell you, I will still love you after watching you kiss the lips of every person that craves your taste.

I will still love you after you steal the oxygen out of helpless gasps and sunken cheekbones.

I will still love you after your temper sets forests ablaze.

I will still love you when you suffocate me in your fumes, leaving me choking on everything I should have said to you.

I will still love you when you burn out and your ember softens against a pillow of ash, and your smell, your taste, your everything lingers in the air like a nostalgic dream that I never want to wake up from.

Let me tell you, I am forever.

I am infinite and I can create and write anything you want, even if it’s just prose on a piece of paper or a picture of the moon on nights when you’re the only good left in the world.

I can be anything you want, and if that is someone that will love you because they want to, and not because they have to, then I will be that.

I won’t quit you.

I can’t.

#love #letter #cigarette #smoke #inlove #pen #committing #acceptance #true

4d C J MILLER

Hanged

4d C J MILLER

Bo Burnham

Hanged

I hung myself today. Hanged? Whatever, point is I hanged myself today and I'm still hanging.

I feel fine. Just bored. I keep hoping that someone will come home and cut me down but then I keep remembering that if i knew someone like that I wouldn't be up here. Bit ironic, right? Or is that not ironic? I read somewhere that, like, anything funny is, in some way, ironic. But I don't know if it's funny or not. I don't think my brain owns "funny," you know?

I feel taller. I like that.

I've never been away from my shadow for this long. It had always clung to my feet, parting momentarily for a quick dive into the swimming pool. But never for five hours. I like it. There's three feet of space between my two and the floor.

I wanted something this morning. I may be stuck. But at least I'm three feet closer to it.

I wanted the book to engage a wide variety of tones and feelings – from seriousness to silliness and from elation to melancholy. This particular poem is from the perspective of a man who has just hanged himself. I thought it was interesting to write a poem from the perspective of someone who has just hanged himself and is pretty nonchalant about it. That someone is /not me/, and that’s half the fun of writing – being able to put yourself in foreign situations and see things from others’ perspectives (and to empathize with them). The poem is definitely dark and a little unsettling but the page before this was a poem about flies buzzing around dog poo. The world is full of dark and light and I just wanted the book to reflect that :)