Ode to Generalized Anxiety Disorder
by Ronnie K. Stephens
Arbiter of arrested breath and stutter step chest/you made an enemy of resting heart rate/tachycardic thump/metronomic breast./Your familiar fist knocks like an old lover./Hard caress./You brain tangling witch./Memory terrorist./Remember the time you showed me that baby girl/slip into the aquarium quiet and quick/that whale shark swallow her whole./I buried her a thousand times that day./A thousand more before I could go back./Remember her small, sure hand in my shaking palm./How we leaned over the rail so she could see the fish./Three years I watched my daughter die/in the gullet of an absent monster/for the sake of theater./You panic monger./How you’ve made a home of unrelenting terror./You sharp slap./You blooming bruise./How beautiful your angry garden on my skin./You enter without a word/door agape behind your silhouette.
Ronnie K. Stephens is an Assistant Professor of English in Texas. He is author of the poetry collections Universe in the Key of Matryoshka and They Rewrote Themselves Legendary, as well as the novel, The Kaleidoscope Sisters. He joins the many artists calling for a Free Palestine and an end to genocide in every corner of the world.
