The Burdens Of Childhood You Can’t Outgrow

Anxiety has slithered around my ankles
and tethered me to the ground.
Advancing forward can feel like
anchors scraping
across dry pavement
an obstacle (or two) in my travels.
As a small child, I tentatively
reached my feet toward the floor
apprehensive of the crevice,
the mere inches
where darkness bleeds until
my monster emerged
and the shackles locked
around each thin, frail, and birdlike
hairless calf then,
accompanied me to school each day
when Mary only had her little lamb.

Photo Credit: blamethecrane Flickr via Compfight cc

N.M. Zwolinski

Nicole (Coley) Zwolinski earned a BA in Creative Writing with a focus in poetry and Mass Communications – Journalism. Coley’s pieces have been published in Firewords Quarterly, Flash Fiction Magazine, Bare Hands, and NEAT. She’s a multipotentialite and when she is not working in an office or writing, she can be found instructing yoga or wrangling her young son, who inherited her husband’s adventurous nature - like scaling the toilet and riding the dog (son, not husband.) Their son is Germericanishishish – a conglomeration of their German, American, Polish, Irish, and English heritages. Her husband is already planning their son’s championship in the Germericanishishish Ninja Warriors competition which will take place, most likely, in their backyard.

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Nicole (Coley) Zwolinski earned a BA in Creative Writing with a focus in poetry and Mass Communications – Journalism. Coley’s pieces have been published in Firewords Quarterly, Flash Fiction Magazine, Bare Hands, and NEAT. She’s a multipotentialite and when she is not working in an office or writing, she can be found instructing yoga or wrangling her young son, who inherited her husband’s adventurous nature - like scaling the toilet and riding the dog (son, not husband.) Their son is Germericanishishish – a conglomeration of their German, American, Polish, Irish, and English heritages. Her husband is already planning their son’s championship in the Germericanishishish Ninja Warriors competition which will take place, most likely, in their backyard.

3 thoughts on “The Burdens Of Childhood You Can’t Outgrow

  1. Very powerful and effective imagery. Although those of us who haven’t experienced it cannot ever fully understand, this piece really helps explain what anxiety sufferers go through each day.

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