Officially, the story is I fell.
Unofficially, we vie for laughs with made up tales.
Parkour for seniors. Ecstatic dancing accident.
My favorite: the faulty sex swing.
Laughter is my drug of choice,
ice cream a close second.
People ask, did it hurt?
The mind takes us to the awfullest places,
mirror neurons firing in sympathetic pain.
It didn’t.
I am a new found fan of shock,
that cottony nautilus of softened edges.
Even as my ankle ballooned with fluid, forcing
the removal of the shoe, my perception
curled inward, knees to chest,
inhale, exhale, inhale.
Anxiety though, yes.
I didn’t expect the doctor to say
surgery,
metal plate,
opiates.
I did not expect the cure to be what ails me.
Worry weaving tales, the busy spider of the mind.
The imagined incision,
screws into bone,
body stapled shut,
placing my unconscious self into the hands of strangers,
trusting them to gentle the body of me.
In the days that follow,
the pressure in my chest out paces any pain.
I opt for binge watching Queer Eye over Oxy,
the balm of five fab fairy godmothers
fixing low self esteem with fashion tips.
I imagine them surprising me with
highlights and bedazzling my cast to match
a fabulous new wardrobe, girl!
When the show ends, my chest tightens again.
With shock gone, I need to pad the fracture
in my sense of invincibility.
At night, I lay, bolstered by a battalion of pillows.
Cocooned in a summer quilt.
Inhale, exhale, inhale, until finally
I am walking,
running,
barefoot
on soft, new grass.
Julie Levin writes poetry centered on themes of impermanence, acceptance, and the wonderful/awfulness of having a body. Her poetry has appeared in The Jacaranda Review, Westwind and The Jewish Literary Journal.
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