Corey Kilgannon
Singer-Songwriter | Nashville, TN
Rocking Chair
from his album
The Hollow
DOWNLOAD on Noisetrade
Cristina Cerny
Writer | Chicago, IL
I’m Not
I understand the Oxford rain on days like this, when the melancholy creeps under my skin and heats my heart. I wake
up in a room of my own with a British breeze that taps into my bones, and I stand by the window seat with arms crossed,
gripping my cardigan to my waist so uncertainty has nowhere to go. But all I have to do is turn around and see the ugly
green duvet to know it is already here.
This morning, the rain is inspired. It speaks of stories not yet told, holding promises for a young lady, a writer pregnant
with words.
Under this demure gray, I feel alive. I meander along Turl Street in search of the covered market, and the people seem to
disappear—not unimportant, just insignificant and small. Because today is not about observation or even interaction. It’s
about what I’m not.
My introspection fails me, I realize, as I walk away from the glass window and into the mist. I can’t decide why I chose the
blue watch. I tell myself I’m not vain, but wishful thinking does not make me a better person, not today.
Today, which tarries on, becoming languid to the touch. My eyelids fall, and I suddenly have the desire to crawl back
under the ugly green duvet. Not to settle into sadness—to think and think and think. These four walls give me no relief,
and soon I have enough notes for a month’s worth of study. Only the weekend is given.
Nothing like the competitive spirit to scare away all inspiration, I think, picking at a scone covered in clotted cream and
jam, sitting across from a friend-turned-academic-rival; this is what Oxford does, makes pretentious fools of us all. Or
maybe just me. The phone in the restaurant is ringing off the hook: another sign of British inefficiency. And I’m left with
a type of misery that coats my mouth in sour aftertaste.
I don’t see my boyfriend at breakfast, but he sits down next to me when I’m halfway finished with lunch and in the middle
of a discussion with a professor. He eats quietly. I touch his leg and smile. Then he’s gone, to write a paper.
I have no outlet for my emotion. Though God is waiting for me with empty anticipation, he must know I will not come.
One hour between classes is not sufficient. Neuroplasticity promises that if I make surrender a lifestyle, I won’t have
to block out time for the Creator because my brain will be wired to desire him. But my brain is not wired that way yet,
because I keep telling myself that one hour is not sufficient. Neither is the score I got on my Romanticism test. Now I
choose my poison: tacit compliance or silent resignation? I think I’ll choose both. It’s that kind of day.
That kind of day because I made it that