JUNE 2024

Nic Miller is a writer, poet, musician, and creative. He is currently wrapping up a Bachelors degree in Psychology at the University of Texas in Austin. He plans to pursue a graduate degree and eventually become a professor in the same field.
Nic provides a fresh yet classic style of writing. His tone is blunt and punchy, similar to writers like David Sedaris while also providing a healthy dose of sardonicism and sarcasm like the style of Kurt Vonnegut. On the other hand, his poetry has a vagueness to it that leaves room for the reader to personally interpret and identify.
Although Nic hasn’t previously released or published any of his work, he has a large stock pile that he continues to add to. He is currently compiling a collection of short stories about the many lives he has already lived and experienced with plans to publish and print when complete.

One in a million 

Don’t you want to be like them?
A tortured soul 
But a brilliant mind?
To have a story 
with as tragic an end
as it’s beginning 
To feather yourself under their banner 
The genius 
The artist 
The poet 
To stand out in a crowd
To wear your name 
And be just like them 
To be,
One in a million 

Restless 

Small moments in the dark 
On cushions 
And under covers 
Only the breaks leave their mark 

The sun only highlights
The dull lines
Of the hook
That lost its bite

The boy 

Look and see how far you’ve come 
Funny to think how it was 
When you were just a boy 
Look now,
Funny to think that you’ve become a man 
And to see all that it cost

Algae

There’s nothing past the feeling 
The world’s gone flat 
Stagnated into a pool
Excitement 
Lust
Love 
Nothing breaks the surface 
Soft ripples 
but nothing beyond the pond 
Life lives 
Beneath the surface

Eric

When we had an especially big property to clear they would send two of us in one truck. Those days came as a relief. The incident at the car dealership and my near-death experience on Broken Arrow Road didn’t leave me giddy to spend more time in the driver’s seat. When we partnered up, I usually got sent out with Eric. Eric was a recovering meth addict who liked obscure online games and pissing in Gatorade bottles. I think the latter was a carry-over from his days living in the attic of Fort Collins Sprinklers where, I’m told, bottles of discolored Glacier Freeze lined the walls. On my first day out with Eric, I was warned by Matt and Marty about the orange bucket that he kept in the back of the cab. I didn’t need to ask too many questions. Pissing in bottles is easy enough, but the logistics of shitting in one gets too messy.
Despite his extracurriculars, I enjoyed the days I spent with Eric. He was kind and easy enough to talk to. He was a man without judgment and I found some safety and understanding in that truck, with its empty cans of off-brand energy drinks and the orange shit bucket rolling around in the back. As an 18-year-old who had just left home for the first time, I was struggling to find my footing in the world. Having lived a life shaped by hardship, Eric offered me a perspective largely absent in my childhood.
I reflect on my time with Eric with both fondness and some level of guilt. I had grown up, as many of us have, looking down on people like him. People who have not only seen, but lived through the faults of our society and fallen victim to them. It’s easy to look down until you’ve been there too. Until you find yourself squatting in some guy’s garden trying to squeeze one out before the last line gets blown. That’s when it occurs to you, at least Eric had the courtesy to bring a bucket.

-Excerpt from God’s Country by Nic Miller