Eulogy to the Living
by Seraiah Proctor
Bowling Green State University
Seraiah Proctor is a Senior undergraduate at Bowling Green State University who is majoring in Film Production with a minor in Creative Writing. She considers herself a storyteller committed to diverse and complex narratives exploring what it means to be "good" and all of the shapes that might take. Her first love is genre fiction and fantasy, but she admits that she has a soft spot for poetry, noting that "It all depends on what is best for the story. Some stories can only be told through verse, just as some are best told on the big screen." She expects to graduate in the spring.
Eulogy to the Living
Remember me.
Remember me as I was but love me as I am.
Remember my eyes, those
melting glaciers filled to the brim
with contempt and warmth and sorrow.
Remember my teeth, always bared
in jubilance or rage or
necessity, stained by early mornings and worn
from restless nights.
Remember my lips, both
soft and chapped,
smirking or scowling or simply resting.
Remember the resonance
of my laughter, that hideous sound
I would make just to make you smile.
You have a lovely smile.
Remember my hands
of stone; my heart of sand—
quicksand, you said. Hopeless
romantic, said I.
Remember my zeal, but forget my idleness.
Remember my scars. I was never perfect
though I did try. Yet my fingers
were often bandaged, my knees often
scratched and bloodied— I said I was clumsy.
You said ambitious.
They amounted to the same thing, I’m afraid.
I’m not afraid.
Remember my gangly arms—
elegant— and my least favorite freckle— cute—
but forget the bed-tousled hair. Pretend
I was one of those silver-screen girls who woke up
with cotton-candy eyelids and rose-soft
cheeks, curls perfectly made.
Remember my audacity, that quaint courage I kept
stored in my shoulders, the recklessness of youth I never
quite grew out of, and you never quite hated.
Remember my heart— yes
my passion, yes my empathy, yes
the organ pumping shattered blood through my veins.
Remember me as I was, but love me as I am.
For I am neither one nor the other.
I am every smile, every breath, every mistake
I am the hopeless quicksand with the complacent knees
The quaint freckle with cotton candy blood
A soft glacier with hideous zeal
Clumsy hands with an ambitious heart—
I am.