I was thrilled when I heard 
It took me a minute to circle back to Poems from the Edge of the Apocalypse after I first bought it. But then, that's how I think books are meant to work, in the sense that you don't find them when you want to; rather they find you.
I read the collection of poetry in two days, at night, and then over a short plane ride. It's not the first time I cry on a plane, though before, I always had a better explanation.
"Oh, I'm just reading some poetry."
Eric's writing hit, for me, several nerves, and I wish I could better put my finger on it. I wish I could point to a single poem and say this one, that's the culprit, except that's not the case.
My descent into the book was gradual. It took me a couple of poems before I was properly drawn in. I wasn't in the mood for poetry, for sensitivity, or perhaps I was mortified by it. I'm traversing a period in my life where vulnerability doesn't come cheap, yet that's precisely what Eric's collection did - insisted that I allow myself to be vulnerable.
Don't waste
your precious hours
wondering why
Is the first highlight I made. It could be a poem in and of itself.
And yet, too often by far, I do. I'm bound by nature to wonder. Am, to my shame, prone to asking. It's an unfortunate state of being. In-between two poems, I slept. And woke, perhaps, in an even more pronounced sense of wonder. The first poem I read above the clouds hit me like a rock,
Life, thus far,
has been magnificent
Is a sentiment I would like to carry with me through life, not just hold fragmentary at my current 26. Is a state I would like to keep wandering.
To me, it has been proven
that this universe is a
place of infinite miracles
Second Life, I thought, would be my favorite poem of the book. But then, that could be true for most of the second half of the poems (and possibly, also, the first, though perhaps I was in a less receptive mood the previous night).
Chicken and Noodles, hot on Second Life's heels, broke me. A visitation of the past - long-ago, though not long-forgot.
and remember how it felt
all those years ago
to have so many of
our chapters unwritten,
It's a poem of hands, but more so of all the love that's lost when we grow older. To me, it's a precious in-between of two difficult stages, a soft voice saying you'll be alright, after all. The older I get, the more aware I become of how important this is - other humans holding out a hand from time to time to catch you. It's not nothing.
Perhaps inexplicably to my fellow passengers, I kept dabbing my eyes. Again, I wish I could tell you why specifically. If only it had been one poem making me think of X or bringing Y to mind, but it was - if it makes sense - the tone of the writing. It felt close. Patient. Kind. In other words, all those things I've been struggling lately to be with myself.
Eric somehow bridged that seeming infinite gap, and caught me. Infinite Elsewheres made me think that maybe it's alright to still not know where I'm going. Where the Pavement Ends felt like a small underhand shot of courage in these terrifying times. Confidence Game reminded me of Burton.
I guess I could share with you all the pieces I picked apart, but I'm pretty sure that would break some copyright laws, since it's practically half the book. Instead, I'll just share with you this, perhaps my favorite quote from a long entirety of good ones:
We are an outlier
Earth's troublesome stepchild
with forced amnesia,
who've allowed ourselves
to be smitten by
the same kind of psychopath
who's bitten us for the whole
of our existence
Amen.
See? I keep trying to put it into words, but most closely I can relate it to something that keeps happening on my yoga mat. I find myself crying sporadically for all the things I try to be strong for and in which I fail. Eric's poems felt a lot like that.
Like it's alright not to be strong all the time.
Like it's alright to hurt even when you're trying so hard to keep it together.
It's not nothing. From A Prism to the Sun, I highlighted "an artist reshaping the frame. You could say Eric does that. Except he doesn't just play with the frame of his writing. Somehow, by some special secret gift, he gives the impression of knowing precisely what my framing is, and reaching through the screen, and helping me see life a little bit better.
What a weight of gratitude I feel. What joy to read. Thank you, Eric. It's been a long time since a poem managed to make me feel this abundance, this much.
