by Jillian Hope Eckert

Where do you carry it, that ever-growing, wholly untamable feeling?

Do you carry it under bitten fingernails?

Hidden in the rotten cavity of your chest?

Sequestered behind shuttered eyelids?

Trapped at the base of your throat, where it wails?

Snagged on brittle bones, cracked to the marrow?

Do you carry it at all?

Maybe you watch it follow, seeping into every action and reaction.

Maybe you let it keep you company, a repository of love left out in the cold.

Maybe you show it the very depths of your soul and allow it to kick at the shattered glass.

Maybe you choose to lead it, loyal and unabating as it is.

Maybe you embrace it, a familiar face entrenched in something you hoped you’d never recognize.

Maybe you read another grief poem (for that’s what it is, it’s grief, and it’s heavy), and maybe you feel okay.

Would that be so terrible?

     Jillian is an English and strategic communications major at OSU. After graduating this spring, she hopes to work in publishing or nonprofits, sharing her love for the arts. She regularly writes for Modmuze, OSU’s student-run fashion and lifestyle magazine, and she plays trumpet in the Cowboy Marching Band. When she’s not reading or listening to music, Jillian spends her time with friends, family, and her dog, Toby.