Brian Eckert

I.

Remember yourself on this day;

The way you looked, the way you talked, the way the sun shone on you;

The way you wanted so badly for something to happen.

 

II.

A friend suffered a nervous breakdown the other day and I thought,

“Oh, good for him!”

as if it were a wedding announcement, a

pronouncement of man and grief,

Together forever

til death do them part.

 

III.

Remember yourself on this day;

The way you thought, the way you moved, the color of your face, the color of your teeth.

 

IV.

Visiting my friend, he told me it was a constant effort to disavow the world and

the unpleasant thoughts that plagued him.

 

“Thoughts of this earth, that

live and die like us,

live when they’re fed and die when they’re not,

like us.”

 

V.

Remember the way he looks today;

The way he moves, the way the light shines off of his mother-of-pearl eyes

into rearranging depths.

 

VI.

“I am so

full of information,

overstuffed with book things,

I could explode;

something must come out.

There must be a bloodletting.

I understand why some people cut themselves, for

the warmth of the blood and the immediacy of its presence;

the feeling of something happening.”

 

VII.

We offer ourselves up for sacrifice

daily and rise from the promise of our life given.

 

The ritual of happiness, the ritual of work, the ritual of love.

Never real happiness or real work or real love.

Always a blood sacrifice,

Never a sacrificial God.

 

VIII.

Til Death do us part, let us Pray:

The Truth will not make you happy;

The truth is a mouth full of sand.

The Truth will not set you free;

The truth is a 3-legged dog.

 

IX.

“I so often feel a ghost.

I yearn to have my blood back. I miss the weight of it in my veins, a great tide rising and falling with the moon cycles.”

I would see the whole world destroyed, just to feel something.”