angst

Angst is the canker I feel from silent seizures, which steal their way into the dark hours, just like last night. Angst amasses, layer upon suffocating layer in an age-old glacier of dread. The seizures, long and weighty, mount—twice monthly, weekly, twice weekly, perhaps unseen others slipping under the radar of sleep.

When I found him my boy sipped the air, swallowed, shivered and shuddered, stared wide-eyed into nothing, seemingly unaware of my presence. We slid him into bed with us where he slept, at first, in Michael’s arms. Amid the trembling limbs of our son sleep eluded us.

In the big bed Calvin and I spooned, his diapered bottom nestled into my belly, legs curled up as if he were still inside me. I rested my hand on his thigh, touched its smooth fleshiness then felt his ribs which faintly rose and fell to the ticking of the clock.

Angst is the awful fusion of hate and fear and dread and yearning for something out of reach. I hate the seizures. I fear their numbers, their wrath. I dread the drugs for what they do and don’t do. I yearn for a remedy, which dangles just beyond my fingertips, a crystalline green flower with the power, perchance, to dissolve all of my angst and more.

photo by Michael Kolster