Who Am I and Why Should You Care?

I have lived three full lives in the span of my 40 years and still, I feel like I know nothing, save for knowing that there is more out there for me to learn and know.

I am a heart of gold wrapped up in tin foil, I am the one reaching out into the dark to see what's willing to come out and play. I am both the friendly shoulder and the cranky introvert. I'm the reader and the rager, the drunkard, the pervert, the lout, the absurd uncle, the writer with the strong opinions, the one willing to lend a hand when asked, I am a number of things contradictory to each other.

I am a lifetime of learning music. The radio gave birth to the violin gave birth to the bass guitar gave birth to the turntable. I am the nasty bassline from a funk song, I am the looped drum break of the hip hop record, I am the buoyancy of house music, I am the nostalgia from the 80s one-hit wonders.

I am the culmination of all the books I've ever read, each word another drop in the well of my own creativity. I am the magical realism, I am the surrealism, I am bits and pieces of the traditional narrative, but I am definitely also the narrative-as-puzzle. I am the succinct description and I am the maximalist. I am the sound of turning pages - both those read and those written upon.

I am a grown man with the expansive imagination and whimsy of a child, I am a terrible lover but a great friend. I am the product of a childhood full of bullying, which means my empathy is often overflowing.

I am a broken back and a life full of vices. I am a litany of bad decisions that all became good stories. I am up before the sun, but up late to fill my introversion. I am an imperfect employee, but I try to better myself on the daily. I am a student of the world, but sometimes a teacher or mentor.

I'll flip a thing upside down so I can see its angles. I like sitting in different perspectives, different views. I am the perpetual devil's advocate, both in argument and in living. I am the hustle, the bustle, the cloistered life of furious creation because I bend to the whims of my muse.

And sometimes I'm just a guy trying to do the best he can with all of the luck and support he's gotten over the years.

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Adam “Bucho” Rodenberger is a surrealist writer from Kansas City. He earned dual bachelor’s degrees in English and Philosophy from the University of Kansas City-Missouri in 2009 while minoring in Political Science. He earned his MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco in 2011 and continues to work on short stories and novels-in-progress. He released his first short story collection, “Scaring the Stars into Submission,” in 2016 and released his second collection, "The Machinery of the Heart: Love Stories" in May of 2019.

He has been published in Agua Magazine, Alors, Et Tois?, Aphelion, Bluestem Magazine, BrainBox Magazine, Castabout Art & Literature, Cause & Effect Magazine, Cahoodaloodaling, Crack the Spine, Eunoia Review, Five Quarterly Magazine, Ginosko Literary Journal, Glint Literary Journal, The Gloom Cupboard, Hamilton Stone Review, The Heartland Review, L’allures des Mots, Lunch Box, Marathon Literary Review, Meat For Tea: The Valley Review, New Dead Families, Offbeatpulp, Penduline Press, Phoebe, Poydras Review, The Raw Art Review, The Santa Clara Review, Serving House Journal, The Seventh Wave, Sheepshead Review, Slice Magazine, Summerset Review, Up The Staircase, Waxing & Waning, Fox Spirit's "Girl at the End of the World: Book 1" anthology, and was included in the “Broken Worlds” anthology published by Almond Press.

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