Xanax

Surely that ache is a heart attack

Left side of my chest

Radiates down my arm

Up into my neck

Dull throbbing nuisance

Take an aspirin

Just in case

Dissolve the clot

Reduce the inflammation

Subdue the anxiety

No

Wait

Maybe

Xanax

Ahhhhhhhh

Perhaps the correct drug of choice

 

When my inner child starts screaming

Clinging in angst to my gut

Churning

Raising a ruckus

And I begin to succumb

Sometimes half a magic tab

Under the tongue

Quick to dissolve

Shhhhhh, I say

We may feel ashamed but we are not shameful

Not to worry, I tell her

No one will know

It was never our fault, I say

Never

Slowly the little screamer subsides

Releases her clutch

She’s almost convinced

Her writhing begins to cease

She retreats into her heap

Perhaps not so cold and lifeless this time

A small glow appears

She breathes quietly

Ahhhhhh

Shhhhh

©kcasady

Socks

Vatican

Art

Skin

Years ago she lost her skin. She'd shed it one day upon hearing dire and cruel news. Words of utter sadness and despair had jammed their way into her ears and her body shuddered so violently that her skin just fell right off into a little pile. Try as she did she could not get it back on. So she picked up her heap of outer flesh, carried it into her garden and dropped it onto the roots of a scraggly red rose bush. At least it might do some good, she thought.

In that moment, she wished she were a reptile with a new layer of skin underlying the old. But alas she was human and there was none. She expected to feel cold or pain but instead she felt only numbness.

So she went into her abode and garbed herself in armor thinking of the scaly metal as the closest thing to reptile skin, as a tough hide that would now have to protect her bare bones and raw under-flesh. But though her new outer wear did its job, it was bulky and heavy, and she clinked and lumbered as she made her way through her days. 

Over time she became an outsider.  None of her friends would have her. It became too hard to converse with a person sheathed in metal, her face masked behind a visor, and who creaked and grated with each movement.

But she felt safe. Now no dire news could find its way past her well-defended deterrent. And even though she was alone, she was finally steady, quiet and content.

One day she went out to her garden. The thin, scraggly red rose bush had grown strong and robust. It had absorbed her skin and integrated it into its thorny system. Its roses now blossomed crimson and full, fleshy and plump in their appearance. 

She ungloved her hand and plucked a rose. And in that instant, her skin felt her and remembered her, and cloaked her body from within the armor. She recalled her vigor and became flooded with the beauty and strength of the rose. Just as she had shed her skin, she now shed her metal scales. And like a reptile, she was garbed in a new derma, pink and plump but tensile and strong. Now she could once again go forth, recovered of her dire news, and no longer in need of her sheltering metallic carapace.

©kcasady

Awe

She glows

One of those women with no need of makeup

A natural beauty

With flawless ivory skin and dichromatic eyes

A dimple imprinted into her chin

Her hair a majestic flow of auburn 

You can't buy that color someone once said

The product of an unknown gene pool

For she does not directly resemble me

But even so minute physical hints exist

Small bits here and there that prove she is my offspring

And I marvel every time I see her

And I am in awe that God choose me to bear her

And when someone says that we look alike I say thank you

But I am always flabbergasted because I do not think of myself as beautiful

©kcasady

Them

I want to be them

Either one

Doesn't matter which

Just beginning

Starting out

New in life

Flying free

Going about the business of being young 

I want to be them

Seeking a first job

Settling into a first apartment

Cozy and small

Full of used furniture of my choosing

I want to be them

Falling in love for the first time

Bedding a beautiful young man

Firm and strong

Planning a sweet future together

I am told to expect new joys

Weddings and grandchildren 

Becoming the matriarch of a grand family

But I have come of the age where my friends are dying of cancer

And my husband doesn't remember what day it is

And I tell my children that one day I shall never leave my house

That I shall be an eccentric old lady who writes silly verses

And my daughter says but mom you will write poems about my children

And my son says mom when will you write a story about me

©kcasady

Premonition

Madhouse

Habitat

Vertigo

Marriage

Mail

Not long after her father died she mailed off his prosthetic leg. She walked into a shipping store, its foot protruding from a card board box and said, "Send this leg to Oklahoma. It is going to a new home."/

Ignoring the furtive glances she handed them the address. "Pack it well," she said. "It has a long journey ahead and needs to arrive unscathed."/

Many months passed. She checked her mail every day looking for some word of her father's leg yet nothing ever came. The silence perplexed her but after awhile, she put aside her daily watch and wondered about it only occasionally./

As the one year anniversary of her father's death approached she became apprehensive; concerned that she would once again be overwhelmed with grief as she had been when he first died./

When that morning dawned she felt tearful. She made a cup of soothing tea. Soon she heard the mail slot open and the sound of envelopes landing on the floor. She gathered them up one by one looking at each as she stacked them./

Oklahoma one said, almost out loud, as if it were actually speaking to her. She moved to the closest chair, sat and opened the envelope./

"Thanks for sending us your father's leg," the letter said. "We have rehabbed it and it has gone to its new home. We are grateful for your donation."/

"Finally!" she said first in a huff and then not as the timing of the letter dawned on her; one of those plausible yet uncanny occurrences. And she knew in that instant that she did not have to be sad and that her father had given her a most precious gift./

"Dad," she said. "Thanks."/

©kcasady

Seeds

Offspring

Medallion

Three days before Christmas, she began to decorate her house. Reaching into one of her plastic storage bins she pulled out a small square gift box. She turned it around in her hands and examined it closely.

Best and Co, the name of a classy, now defunct department store, shown on its lid.

Pretty frilly things often leapt out the Best and Co boxes of her childhood.

Silk scarves. Lacy embroidered handkerchiefs. Soft white cotton dress gloves to wear with spring frocks. Little girl-woman things burrowed beneath layers of pink tissue. 

The beige cardboard had faded almost to a tan but the box remained completely intact. Old but sturdy she thought yet the presence of the box puzzled her. Other small boxes dotted the storage bin each holding its special ornament but none were labeled Best and Co. The small gift box stood out as an oddity among its peers. 

Curiosity prevailed and she opened it. There nestled in soft pink tissue was a silver medallion inlaid on both sides with coral and turquoise. She sought the nearest chair. She hadn't seen the piece of jewelry in years. Not since she'd given it to her mother as a gift. 

She'd bought it from a skilled craftsman at a market in Mexico City. A pretty trinket but something she knew her mother would like. And her choice was perfect. Her mother wore it often. The beautiful medallion floated comfortably on her mother's ample breasts moving in concert with each breath. 

But it had disappeared. It had not been among her mother's personal affects after she'd died nor had she even thought to look for it thinking it was missing. Yet there, among Christmas ornaments, in a bin that made its appearance only once a year, lay the long forgotten medallion. Obvious questions begged to be answered but no logic could explain the medallion's presence. 

Then it occurred to her that the date was December 22, what would have been her mother's 101st birthday. She sat back in her chair and smiled. She slowly removed the medallion from the Best and Co box and put it on. And though she did not have ample breasts like her mother, the medallion still suited her and the marvelous gift from the grave rose up and down with each breath she took. ©kcasady