winter storm warning by Andrea Grabowski “and in one little moment / it all implodes”—Snow Patrol, “This Isn’t Everything You Are” there are no taillights to guide me, but at least i know to pull over, tires skidding on ice, breath skidding in my lungs. this trembling is a sliver of a ghost, a trauma not yet rewritten. if only remembering that came easy. don’t keel over now, don’t keel over. the snow falls thick on my windshield, mirroring the inside of my head. but all blizzards end. & a poet from oregon, who knows what it’s like to be so soft that everything just bruises, sends me my horoscope & it calls pisces porous & it’s true. how can we stay soft & not ache this much all the time? i don’t want to freeze over, not like kettle lakes. i want to stay wild & open like the waves at otter creek beach, even when the ten degree skies ransack my serotonin. even when civilization wants me apathetic. if 19th century doctors would call me mad, then let them. if the live, laugh, love signs in target mock my unease, then let them. let me be not palatable. an inconvenience. let me listen to badlands and manic every day. still learning who’s in control. or metalcore on cedar run & west front street, a pounding in my chest reminding me to not forget the sun, even if i haven’t seen it in days. a pounding in my chest that’s not this lingering feeling of being chased by wolves that should’ve evolved out of my neurons centuries ago. but even prehistoric slavic wolves can be befriended. i am just so exhausted. maybe i should become an electrician to fund this writing career. so i can replace all the fluorescent lights with warm ones that don’t pull neon-yellow wool over my brain. too often i have weighed anxious lies with red-flag instinct. i think i am learning the difference. watering tulips & pear trees & chili peppers, juniper bushes & strawberries, & watching them not become thorns. none of us are well. but we’re trying, & in years like these, what a goddamn victory. maybe i should start drinking more tea. but i want coffee & validation. i know there’s no shame in that, or liking kintsugi & to write love on her arms. or some days, wanting to break gold-repaired pottery so the crash is loud enough to end all the stigma. standing in the desert, i can see how far i’ve come. dust on my boots, a bolder stride to make my shoulders know it’s the present day.
13
Anxiety
