remind yourself daily
by Austin Eichelberger
Get out of bed when the sun wakes you, even though no one is standing in the doorway, blinking himself awake and asking what’s for breakfast.
Brush your teeth and shower, comb your hair, put on fresh socks and underwear, smile at people like nothing is wrong.
Drink water—really anything besides alcohol, especially by the open windows first thing each morning, where neighbors can easily see.
Take stock of the life still around you: pity-eyed friends who frown and nod, mother who won't stop calling, plants you've let brown and fold in on themselves.
Always remember to feed his cat—yours now—and slap the can twice to get the last bits out, but not so hard that it spatters the wall.
Grumble as you look for a rag to wipe up your messes.
Fix plates of broccoli, rice and chicken rather than Milky Ways, chips and French fries, and in portions fit for the weight of your body rather than the weight of your heart.
Think of that stupid birthday party you can now skip, former dreams of having more kids, yet wonder only briefly about all you've lost: this is a shipwreck and you're stranded, but panic attracts sharks.
Dial your mother’s number and write a text letting your sister know you're “okay.”
Hang up, delete, then scribble a note to contact them both tomorrow.
Exclaim to the empty apartment—cat outside hunting—that your only foods are condiments, you've accepted the wine-red spot on the living room carpet, the lingering sour smell might be your sheets.
“Try to feel better” like your boss says each morning, when you resist yelling over his smiling voice as he talks about “feeling better” like it’s easy as biting your lip or ruining your favorite shirt or losing your breath.
Pry yourself from under your warmest blanket, out of your most comfortable chair set in the soft sun that folds through your window to melt tumbling thoughts away—but don't get upset if you stay there until the light stretches and the chair has long been in shadow.
Meditate: embrace cool nothingness and turn away from negative thoughts, sit uncomfortably still until you can feel your muscles and bones aging.
Dismiss the new thoughts this brings on—skin heavy with wrinkles, breath acidic, no one to come visit, alonealonealone—and stand to reinforce the change of mind.
Convince yourself yoga is still gratifying because you can stretch until you almost snap: can feel a breaking point so near that you’re able to clasp it close, and no gods or rip tides can tear it from you.
Release your leg: lower it slowly as sweat rolls and allow yourself to picture his sweet, round face.
View him in your mind as your standing ankle wavers and threatens to topple you: highlight his cheekbones, smile, brow, the pieces of him you now see on other children’s faces.
Do not shy away when his face bloats and turns velvety blue, mouth a sigh, hair across eyes like seaweed, like algae in a current.
Remind yourself the only reason this ocean of grief has a home in you is because that space was first carved out by love.
Repeat the previous step until it becomes a rhythm through which you hear the rest of the world.
When you feel able, lift your head, rise from where you collapsed, trembling, on your foam mat.
Tell yourself a glass of water will help.
Vow to scrub dishes before sunrise, to cram clothes into the machine—none of his, you already checked—but know it’s okay if you don’t: when your alarm goes off, you may find yourself standing before the sink with an empty cup in hand, throat still dry from the night before.
Call into work again—“I will, I will, thanks, I mean it”—and pause to touch his room’s locked brass handle as you wander to your bedroom to dream of anything but him.
Photo of Austin Eichelberger
BIO: Starting with a gay sex poem submitted in secret when he was sixteen, over a hundred pieces of Austin Eichelberger’s writing have been published by journals, newspapers, and anthologies, including Cleaver, Gone Lawn, The Tishman Review, and Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, and his visual art has appeared in The Pinch. He won Fictionade Magazine's 2012 250-Word Short Story Contest, and was awarded fourth place in the 2016 Larry Brown Short Story Award by Pithead Chapel. Raised in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Valley, Austin now teaches creative writing among the mesas of New Mexico. More at austineichelberger.com.