SPECIAL ISSUE: HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
WORDS - Maya Lewis

I’m under a lot of pressure, did you know?
To stay alive - to live, I guess.
I’ve been told it runs in my family, in my blood, this pressure
to survive.
I’ve been told too that sometimes it's too much.
Pressure. It overshoots.
Misses survive, by quite a long shot and
kills us.
Happened to my granddaddy,
And my grandmamma. And I think hers
too. I smell it on me - simmering
beneath my skin. Who’s to say
what causes it? It’s a mystery yet to
be solved, I was told. 

But, you can take a pill
everyday for the rest of your life - to
keep a lid on it.
And cross your fingers and your toes,
and your heart, throw
salt over my left shoulder, sage
your heart chakra, no fried anything
and never let a white person cross you
on the right hand side, except in city
limits - and maybe
that time, the pressure will land,
just shy of death, on survival.