SECRET:SACRED, by Eliot Gilkeson

Poetry, chapbook, 40 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

In early June 2025, Eliot was treated for a concussion they do not remember getting. They don’t know if the lack of memory was due to the drinking involved that night or to the concussion itself. Either way, it immediately put them back on an often tip-toed path toward sobriety with a reassured and medically necessitated importance.

About a month and a half later, when the excruciating symptoms of concussion had not lessened their grip, Eliot was diagnosed with Persistent Post-Concussive Syndrome — and the universe exclaimed, “Slow the f*ck down!”

They spent the summer and autumn of 2025 in what they gently called “an era of solitude and seclusion,” needing a whole lot of quiet, darkness, and medications. But Eliot found themself writing a lot again, and finally, maybe, able to take their creative work seriously.

This is a polished account of what spilled out — the words that came to them like a muse.

“The re-absorption of blood in my brain took over 5 months / the re-building of hardware is taking even longer, and / the re-acquaintance of self promises a lifetime...”

ELIOT GILKESON is a queer, non-binary writer, worker, and seeker of balance + inner landscapes. They live in Philadelphia with their black cat, Poncho.