Hi, bottle of little white pills.

Your CVS label calls you Buspirone

with a bunch of other stuff

I don’t understand.

Racing heart, racing thoughts

Inflated physical pains, imagined catastrophes

You’re supposed to make go away.

 

Can’t take breath in –

Guttural cries like a baby in severe pain –

Need to straighten and structure –

Fears that I’m “screwed”

(in one way or another) –

They’re less frequent, less frettsome

But never completely gone away.

 

Graduate student, 3.75 GPA.

Yoga instructor, E-RYT 500.

Clean, composed, professional,

Never missing that follow up e-mail,

Never a late bill or assignment,

“It’s ok, I got the bathroom and kitchen

for cleaning this week if you can’t get to it.”

 

Truly, as who I am,

and what I wouldn’t change for the world,

all that will never be completely gone away.

For now, and maybe for always,

the little white pills

make it all a little easier to swallow.